Oh No! Another Lord of the Rings Parody?
by Kitt Otter
Summary: 'Fraid so. Frodo's a stinker and Bilbo's worse. Sauron's beard is pointy and his minions wield chainsaws. Aragorn couldn't find his nose in the dark. And the worst of it…? Gandalf owes me money. MEFA 2010 nominee; thanks Clodia!
1. Just Another Day

**Oh No! Another Lord of the Rings Parody?**

**Notes:** This was created with the combined effort of two of my siblings, many otherwise dull evenings, and a few hundred lego bricks. Rating is for general meanness and crudeness. Apologies in advance, but my sibs are boys. :P

I hesitate to call this a parody, it's more like an exercise in pushing limits. Fun for me, not so much to the characters involved. Someone clever once said _we destroy that which we love_, or somethin' like that...

Updates may be infrequent. But I promise to finish unless something unfortunate and unforeseen occurs. So here goes...

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**Chapter 1: Just Another Day **

"Now to start on my book." Mr. B. Baggins of Bad End settled down on his bamboo crafted desk that he had specially ordered from the East. "But where to begin?" He rubbed his monocle on his silk jacket and replaced it in his eye. He poised his pen over his paper, starting to form the word _In…_

An ear-shattering banging caused him to squeal his pen over his paper, mortally wounding the sheet in a rip that bled gold ink. At another bang, Bilbo fell out of his chair. At yet a louder pound his false mustaches curled.

"BILBO! OPEN THAT DOOR!"

Bilbo straightened his curly, powdered hair (said to be a wig, and in fact, it was). He grabbed a silver staff capped with a giant emerald, big as a cantaloupe. Across his cashmere rug he crawled, and keeping low, he closed the blinds of his round window with the end of his staff.

The same instant his window thudded. "Bilbo! OPEN UP! We know you're in there!" Bilbo snuck out of the room, crawling as a snake, pulling down the shades of windows as he went. Even as he pulled down one, the window shuddered with a "Bilbo!"

"Frodo!" Bilbo called. "Frodo! Drat, where is that boy?" The bangings were, if possible, growing more insistent. "Frodo! Come here and tell the S-B's that I've taken a walk to Arcturus!" Bilbo cowered in the kitchen.

"What? What?" Frodo stomped in, yawning.

Bilbo waved his staff in his nephew's face. "Where've you been, boy?"

"Sleepin' "

"Well, the S-B's are here – no, stop. It is too late! Release the bees!" Frodo boredly pulled a red leaver over the coffeemaker. A buzz and two sets of screams followed. Bilbo cackled, snapping his fingers. "That'll show 'em. Always pestering me about my health – I'll show 'em. I'll out live 'em." He snapped some more. "Now, Frodo, get some dinner cooking. And don't bother me. I have to start my book."

Meanwhile, the giant bees lazily buzzed back. Bought from the Beornings at no low cost, they had been easily trained to seek and destroy all but their masters.

B. Baggins reseated himself, after a long conversation with Precious (a ring). Many curs'd and exotic items filled his rooms and passages. His home was a place of myth and wonder, said to harbor secret chambers in every room that burst with gold and silver. Maybe, maybe not. Bilbo was not telling, but boy, he did have a lot of stuff. He collected rare items, which blocked over any existing secret passages and belying his denial of vast riches. Being himself a retired "expert treasure hunter" he often entertained other fellows of his occupation from lands as distant as Fornost, Harad, and Dorwinion. At each visit they added to the accumulation of worthless treasure maps and broken magic furniture.

Bilbo scratched these random thoughts from his head. "Hobbits?" he asked himself. "What are hobbits?"

The doorbell rang like a siren. "Frodo! Get the door!" The bell continued its wail; Bilbo tore down a golden fleece from his wall and stuffed it in his ears. After ten minutes of cringing over his desk, he trudged to the front hallway, lined with maps of "outlandish" places and an "unnatural" quantity of walking sticks.

"What?" He opened the door. Outside waited half a dozen of hobbit-lads, as fat and grubby as befitted any healthy Shire youth. "Uncle Bilbo, we're here for our nephew allowance." All held out sugar-crusted hands.

"All right." Bilbo felt into his pocket and deposited a gold piece each. One pink-faced lad took another place in line and opened his palms for seconds. "Hey! Brownfoot!" Bilbo shook his fist. "You ain't even a relation! Now scram!" He closed the door, mopping the sweat from under his wig. "And back to my book."

He had not even lifted his pen again when came a subtle knock on the door. "Now what? Frodo!" He did not even bother to wait for the lad, and grumbled to the door. A bespeckled fellow with a magnifying glass and a pickaxe pushed his way in. "Excuse me," said the intruder in a wheedling voice. "I'm an expert."

"Expert of what?" shrieked Bilbo. The fellow shoved past – the pickaxe was very pointy – and began tapping the walls. Then did Bilbo notice a whole crowd of gawking hobbits lined up on his lawn; they marched in, trampling him into his oliphaunt-skin doormat. "What is this, what is this?" Bilbo grabbed the next over-stomper.

"Hey man, watch the leather." It was one of his Brandybuck nephews, Meriadoc, known around there as Merry. His leather jacket and boots squeaked as he settled against the wall. "You're having an open house, didn't you hear, man?"

"Otho," Bilbo hissed. In his thoughts he labeled Otho and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins with many rude words. "Oooh, I am angry. ANGRY! Get the other nephews, those loyal to me, and round up this lot!"

With the walking sticks, Merry, with the most steadfast nephews and Bilbo, managed to drive the invaders out with no causalities, though several chairs and carpets were missing after and the bathroom was never the same again.

Only as the last hobbit was swatted out did Frodo finally appear. "Where've you been, boy?" grumbled Bilbo, giving the nephews a reluctant tip and slamming the door.

"I was buying dinner," Frodo rolled his eyes. "We had no food."

"Impossible! After I just ordered a cart-load!" Bilbo marched to the pantry. A mumbling, smacking sound came from within. He lit a lantern. In the light formed the glob of Fredegar Bolger.

"Flabby! Out! Out!" Flabby Bolger glanced up, stuffed his pockets with the last apples and turkeys, and waddled away.

Bilbo, sighing and straitening his mustaches, turned to Frodo. "You know our birthday?"

Frodo looked at his uncle, brow raised, for Bilbo had begun to sound cruel and conspiratory, like he did before a practical joke. "Yes."

"And how it was yesterday?"

"Uh-huh."

"And how I didn't invite anyone?"

"Yep."

"Well, next year, I'm going to invite the whole Shire. Then I'll show 'em." Bilbo cackled most ominously.

**To be continued**


	2. Worthless

**Chapter 2: Worthless **

Autumn came with a sledgehammer: it colored the leaves, bit the blooms, and, most sinisterly, oranged the pumpkins. Samwise Gamgee looked at the onslaught autumn had had on his employer's garden. Giant gardens, full of exotic plants like gingko trees by the gate and Venus flytraps under the kitchen window, all hissed silently at the gardener, as though the crisp breeze was his fault. He ignored them today and took a loving snip of grass. Maybe one of the last snips until April.

"Gamgee!" The two Baggins strolled out the door. Bilbo wore a red turban and Frodo a six-foot trailing cape. "Make sure no one comes in. We're going for a walk, then to the Dragon afterwards so we can eat canned ham with spoons and no napkins in front of everyone. So we'll be back late." Bilbo guffawed.

"Yes, Sir," saluted Sam. "I won't fail this time, Sir."

"See to it you don't," growled Frodo. They clicked open the many locks on the gate, from which hung a sign saying _Go Away._

Sam, humming, went back to his clipping. This productivity lasted for five minutes until a sudden voice made him over-snip the perfect horizontal cut, drop his clippers, and fall backwards.

"Ohhhhh, Sam," warbled the Gaffer. "Why are you just sitting there, Sam? Is that how you clip grass? Worthless as the day you were born; you shame me, Sam." The Gaffer, whose real name, Hamfast Gamgee, had been forgotten by that Age, had had several children. Their names were Ham, Hal and Sam, and several daughters were around somewhere. The Gaffer had been in a creative mood the night of Sam's birth, when it was announced at the Green Dragon. Or maybe it had been a slur.

"I thought Ham had sent some," Sam said in a dry sweat.

"No, Sam; since Ham's been in the North Farthing, I ain't seen a mini-money. All my sons abandoned me. You must not fail me worse, Sam."

"I'll try, Gaffer!"

"And stop sitting there worthless-like."

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'll try harder, Gaffer." Sam started to furiously tug at the once-immaculate grass.

The Gaffer leaned to the fence. "I need my pay, Sam." The truth was that Sam was not the gardener, only the assistant of the gardener (i.e. the Gaffer), being not of age yet.

"Master Bilbo is out… I could ask when he gets back."

"Ohhhhh, doing this to your poor old Gaffer. You are an ingrate, Sam. After all the trouble I went through raising you," the Gaffer shook his prune-wrinkled head. "I need the pay soon, Sam." The Gaffer shuffled away to the Green Dragon Tavern, his abode, muttering "Worthless, worthless."

Sam sat for a moment, anxiously twiddling his clipper. Suddenly Frodo and Bilbo shoved into the yard at a vicious pace; Sam was surprised. He asked: "Did you eat the ham, Sirs?"

Bilbo shook his head, muttering, "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date! They're coming tonight, I forgot; oooh, I'm late, I'm late, I'm -" he slammed the round door shut behind him.

Sam wrung his hands in indecision; then he heard the Gaffer's voice in his head: _"Gimme my pay, Sam. You don't want to disappoint your poor old Gaffer. Worthless…"_ Sam took a deep breath and tiptoed into the door of Bad End.

He heard a scurry of chairs and papers in distant halls, somewhere near the kitchen. He tiptoed, his heart far behind him, around the corner, passing dark rooms, ghouls and phantom shadows of the junk Bilbo had displayed in his hallway. Sam realized not a single light was on. "Dark for dark business," he heard Mister Baggins say with an echoing cackle. The miserable gardener wanted more than anything to turn back, yet he wanted less to face the Gaffer empty-handed.

He slunk into the dining room's doorway; only there held signs of life shown by a single candle that lit the whole room. The Bagginses were hunched over the table and what looked mysteriously like… catalogs. When his two masters noticed him, they rapidly gathered up the order books and shoved them under their bodies. "Whadya want?" gasped Bilbo.

"Well, uh, sir, I umm, the Gaffer, well, if you understand me…"

"No," said Frodo.

"I just wondered if you… Had. The Gaffer's. Pay."

"Oh, that," Bilbo waved dismissively. "Look in the flour barrel."

When Sam left twenty minutes later, head to toes covered in white powder and several monies in one fist, he thought and would think again – well, he did not call it thinking, he was not allowed to – he thought something big in a bad way was about to happen at Bad End… He did not notice a swarthy, long-faced fellow with quick, slanted eyes, smelling of sea salt and bearing an ear full of gold trimmings hunching in the rose bushes. The figure held a knife in his teeth; for an hour as the twilight painted on its last layers of darkness, he did not move, not even twitch. At the time of greatest night, then, and only then, did he move. Bad End had no lawn lights and all sight of the neighbors was blocked off by eight-foot red screens Bilbo had ordered Sam put up years ago, so no one saw the man slip in through the round door.

* * *

Bilbo and Frodo Baggins sifted through catalogs; they had already marked most of the pages, which included several varieties of explosives, 15 barrels of slugs, and cheep paper forks and plates. "Do you think we should order the 12 oz or 16 oz?" Bilbo pointed to a page of teargas. Frodo did not answer because in the page appeared an upright, quivering knife.

They both looked up at a dark, bowed figure in the doorway. "Kei Kuhn! Welcome, welcome!" Bilbo extended his hands.

The tall expert-treasure hunter knocked his head on the doorpost and stooped further in, looking for a chair in the blackness. "Is the shrimp here yet? (No offense, B.)," said Kei Kuhn, sitting hard on the floor.

"He's here!" said a sinister, booming voice. A shadow, darker than the rest of the darkness leaked through the closed window and shaped into a black bearded, lithe form: a dangerous looking Dwarf, with shining black eyes.

"Flópi! I don't know how you do it." Bilbo shook his head, impressed.

Flópi son of Dópi took a chair and Kei Kuhn found one at last. The Man eyed the Dwarf warily. In their business they had "borrowed" from each other on several adverse occasions, usually leaving only rough feelings behind; but with Bilbo – The Illustrious Burglar Baggins, master thief of Dragons, Elves, Trolls, etc – as mediator, they could tolerate each other. Kei Kuhn's industry typically took him along the coasts and to the far south. Flópi had enterprises around tombs, temples and such. Among the members of the Expert Treasure Hunters' Union of Middle-earth (ETHUM), Bad End of Hobbiton was an epicenter. Through here did the rarest and most dangerous products of the business pass.

With the pleasantries past, Bilbo brought them to business matters. Frodo set out croissants and butter and sat down to listen. "Did you get the merchandise?" asked Bilbo, offering a croissant to Precious.

Kei Kuhn took a large sack from his trousers and upturned it on the table; the candlelight revealed Dragon teeth (Bilbo planned to hang them on the chandeliers), an enchanted yoyo (Bilbo always wanted one of those), and a Pharaoh's crown. Bilbo quickly replaced his powdered wig with it. "That one required me to work overtime," said Kei Kuhn, feeling several scars along his rump.

"And yes, you will be rewarded." Bilbo was clapping his hands in glee. "Frodo? Where are the diamonds – no, I mean the good diamonds. In the jelly, right; go fetch them!"

Frodo left and Bilbo then turned politely to Flópi.

"I have what you ordered," said the Dwarf.

Bilbo's breath quickened. "Then let usss have it!"

Flópi took a pouch from his beard and put his hand inside and pulled it out, clasping something. Blue light shown between his fingers, a light pure but dark, beautiful but malicious. "Behold!" said Flópi, opening his hand. "The Eye of the Monkey."

Kei Kuhn stood up in awe and cracked his head on the ceiling. Bilbo's false mustaches stood out on end. The large blue gem vibrated the air.

"Impossible," said Kei Kuhn, infinitely jealous. "The Eye of the Monkey was lost hundreds of years ago, no one knows where."

"It was in the East in the keeping of a hotel manager. And I helped the old man check out," Flópi laughed in his deep voice.

Kei Kuhn continued: "And it is cursed anyway. One cannot be the true master unless the old master is killed by the new master's hand. Otherwise a Curse of Evil Bad Luck falls upon the new master and all who have anything to do with him."

No one replied to the dirty Man. "This jewel is the opposite of worthless and brought great risk to its… buyer." Flópi eyed Bilbo expectantly.

"Yes, yes; will this do?" The Hobbit grunted and labored to pull a 9x6x6 chest onto the table, finally managing to and flinging it open to reveal close-packed gold coins. Flópi tossed Bilbo the Eye of the Monkey and a hiss of doom trailed through the air after; the smoke of which did not clear for five minutes.

Kei Kuhn ahemed. "Won't this mean Flópi must die? Because I could-"

"Don't be silly," said Bilbo, not listening, all eyes on the Eye. "I have jobs for you two yet. I need all this stuff delivered by September."

"No good stuff?" asked Flópi.

"The good stuff is in this one." Bilbo pulled out Kei Kuhn's knife and showed the catalog _Black Market Bobbins and Baubles._ The Dwarf and Man each rubbed together eager hands.

"The Monkey's Eye is perilous," Kei Kuhn insisted after a moment.

"I know enough about jewels, please, thank-you," sniffed Bilbo. "You know well the Arkenstone, and…" Bilbo muttered the names of several jewels, though neither of the other expert treasure hunters could pick them out. "Verily, my friends, you are looking at the greatest jewel thief in history!" Suddenly the candle blew out, Precious trembled, the earth shook, and distant dogs howled. "I meant except for Morgoth, yes," said Bilbo quickly, relighting the candle.

The other two chuckled nervously. Bilbo stabbed a croissant with the knife. "Just get my orders." Bilbo waggled the croissant at them. "I'm counting on you two for my Day of Doom." The Burglar took a bite and did not bother to swallow before saying, "My birthday, I mean."

**

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**Notes: **I'll try to site my sources as I go…

"I'm late…" is from the White Rabbit in _Alice in Wonderland, _o' course.

"Dark for dark business" as Thorin said in "An Unexpected Party" in _The Hobbit_.


	3. The Pippening

**Chapter 3: The Pippening **

Winter came; the skies barfed snow the likes of which the Shire hadn't seen since… last winter. Inside Bad End, Bilbo Baggins hummed a little song to himself as he worked at his hobby (and obsession) of cleaning his home – so efficiently as to be queer even in Hobbiton.

_Scrub the walls, scrub the doors,_

_Scrub 'em till ya can't scrub no mores._

_That's what Bilbo Baggins likes!_

_Wipe the mantle, wipe the chamber pot,_

_Wipe the ceiling till there ain't a damn'd spot!_

_That's what Bilbo Baggins likes!_

_Dust the soap, dust the candelabra – _

As he balanced precariously from a chair to wipe the wall-attached candelabra (hand-crafted in the shape of a Dragon) a CRASH resonated through the Hobbit-hole, sending Bilbo into the air. He grabbed the candelabra and, dangling, stared at the welded, candle-retching Dragon's face. Following the CRASH came a squeal: "Wheeeeee! I'm cool!"

Bilbo gritted his teeth as he hung for his life. It could only be…

"Peregrine Took!" he called. "Go home!"

"I'm not doing nothing," said the inane Hobbit-lad. Another CRASH.

Then like a whirlwind, like a herd of oliphants, Pippin trampled in with endless energy once bound in the sugar of cookies and cakes that made up his five daily meals. "I ran away from home FOREVER."

"Not again," groaned the monocled Baggins. The Dragon candelabra tore from the wall; Bilbo crashed to the floor in a shower of dust and jewels that he had stuffed behind the Dragon.

Pippin stuffed as many sparkling gems into his trousers as he could ere his uncle recovered. Needless to say, Bilbo got as many back as he could, namely by shaking Pippin out by his toes.

"You're mean," whined Pippin.

"Go bother Frodo."

In the sitting room, Frodo was writing what looked like invitations to the whole Shire. At least twenty-five stacks of gold-addressed envelopes towered up to the rounded ceiling. Since autumn, the chubby cherubs painted on the ceiling had boredly watched Frodo at this labor.

"Let me see!" wailed Pippin.

"Go away!" Frodo tried to bodily hide the stacks. It was all, by Bilbo's orders, to be hush-hush.

"No!!" Pippin dashed in but only to play with the secret door hidden in the bookcase. Bilbo believed no one knew about it though everybody did. (Sam Gamgee could not keep a secret.) The secret door soon tiring him, Pippin began tossing books off the shelves. Money flew out of the pages of each of the tomes.

Frodo looked up at the fluttering bills. "That is it. Get out," he quietly roared.

"No!!" Pippin replied. He flew from the room, screaming "Wheeeee!" with all the power of his lungs. Neither of the Baggins saw nor heard (nor smelt) him for a good hour. Whether that was a good thing is left open for question.

Seeing as a meal was overdo – two hours since the last!! – Bilbo and Frodo prepared a quick repast of boiled lobster, buttered potatoes, and _Cap'n Círdan's Cram Cakes®_ (not the cheap brand). About this time, the young Took reappeared, following the trail of scents. "I wanna help!" He plunged salt, pepper, and paprika into the pot of cooking potatoes, jars and all. Frodo bit a ladle to keep from screaming something _very_ vile.

"And what were you doing?"

"I repainted the parlor," answered Pippin.

Bilbo shouted from the dining room: "Tell the rip to set the table – if he wants to earn his meal."

"Pippin, set the table."

"Mmmrrff! You're draining me of my youth!"

But Pippin did "set" the table, anyway, throwing the plates onto the table so they cracked and tossing the knives and forks so they stuck in the walls.

They sat down. Pippin yelled about how he had helped make the potatoes and Frodo did not tell him that he gave the indigestible concoction to the Gamgees. When Pippin was done with his share of cram cakes, and after munching on a few lobster shells, he ran from the room, though not before taking the cram from the other two's plate-shards. Bilbo and Frodo spoke business for the next half hour, of how they would by some sort of device lob off Otho Sackville-Baggins's head next time he stuck it over the fence. Then they got up, intending to quietly plot some more in the sitting room. But when they arrived, the sitting room was full of snow – no, Frodo caught a flake with his hand – shredded _paper._

"I made a paperman!" shrilled Pippin proudly. Gone were the twenty-five stacks of hand-written invitations, and in their place was what looked like a giant spitball, Pippin jigging with glee around it. Frodo's face began to turn many colors.

"Now, now," said Bilbo, patting Frodo's shoulder comfortingly with his staff, no longer topped with the gaudy emerald but the wicked blue Eye of the Monkey. "There's no reason to be upset with the boy. A bit of imagination is good, you know; helps one vent one's malice later in life."

"I'm cool!" suggested Pippin; he tugged Bilbo's sleeve. "Uncle Bilbo, we was playing, and I was the finder, and Precious was the hider, and I can't find him, and…"

Pippin ducked; Bilbo's fingers gripped where his neck had been just a moment before. Shrieking, Pippin darted out of the room, into the hallway, crashing towards to the front door. Wheezing with paper-bits in his lungs, B. Baggins thundered after; but the young Took was fuller of sugar and had made it to the round door. Pippin tore the door from its hinges, pausing just long enough to smirk at Bilbo and flash a few rubies in the crisp air that he had still hidden in his trousers. Then he threw the door into the snow, with a wheeee, sledding all the way to Tookland.

**To be continued**

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**Notes:** Song based on the one the Dwarves sung in "An Unexpected Party", _The Hobbit_ – "Chip the glasses and crack the plates…" – "And of course they did none of these dreadful things…" ;)


	4. The Party Cometh

**Chapter 4: The Party Cometh**

Sam found himself once again late in gathering the pay. Well, it was April! So much to do! To weed, to water, to plant, to prune! And Mr. Bilbo was too busy to recall the existence of a measly assistant gardener. "Ohhh Sam, I don't why I try anymore, Sam," the Gaffer had reminded him while crawling his way to the Green Dragon. "You were always hopeless, you worthless son of mine…"

The Gaffer had left some time before and even then wind had been coughing: a storm was about to break, black clouds had turned day to night and there were rumbles in the distant hills. In fact, Sam noticed there had been an awful lot of black clouds hovering over Hobbiton lately, almost as though gathering to something Evil… he smacked himself for thinking such a queer thing. Since he could do no more gardening, he stood, ears pounding from the pressure in the air, intending to march through Bad End's door for his Gaffer's pay.

Before he could, however, he heard Master Bilbo from some open window: "Frodo, are those PARTY invitations done yet? I've got to invite the whole Shire, y'know… oh, no, you don't have to write to all of them; 'skip' a few to hurt their feelings. Your pick!" Bilbo cackled.

Sam fell backwards onto the rose bushes. He had to get out of here… he should not have heard that… His heart beating wildly, he scrambled out of the yard. A party? Oh my! Oh perennials! He could not _not _tell someone… he would explode. Or maybe it was just the storm's pressure. He fought his way through the wind and hail to the Green Dragon.

- - - -

At the bar, peg legs leaning to the side, the Gaffer took a swig from his mug. "Ye-es, I've been working for the Bagginses for sixty years. And now that worthless son of mine has uprooted sixty years of my labor." He shook his wrinkly head; everyone leaned in. The Gaffer was, for all purposes, a permanent resident of the Dragon and every word of his was heeded as a lad heeds where his mother puts the sweets. The Gaffer was as old as the wind, as ancient as the hills; he knew all.

"Them Baggins is cracked, mm'hm. Downright unnatural-ated," said Will Fatbelly. There was murmuring and farting of agreement.

"I seen 'im once disappear; just disappear!" cried Ted Candyman. The other drinkers looked at him and booed. "Ruffian!" one called. "Stirring up unnatural talk!" shrilled another. The bartender had Candyman squeezed out the round window amidst his "No! No!" protesting. The bartender wagged his head: "I won't have troublemakers in my tavern; I just won't"

The Gaffer continued with his warble as though nothing had happened. "We-ell he does act unnatural, but he at least stays out of water, and that would be throwing the last cake into the fire, if you take my meaning."

Suddenly the door opened, wind howling through and rain tearing in; Mr. Fatbelly spilled beer in his eye. Lightning cracked, showing a black figure in the doorway.

"Mister Bilbo…" the figure panted. "Is gonna have party… whole Shire invited." Everyone flew to his feet, gasping, gobbling, yodeling. The Gaffer pulled his peg legs back on (he lost his real ones in the War) and staggered over to Sam, putting his arm around his shoulder. "Tell us everything, Sam. Make me proud. I knew I could count on you, Sam. Why, you're like a son to me."

"I am your son."

The Gaffer nodded. Sam told all; amid the rapt attention and praise he received he felt a warm glow. When the Gaffer told him to keep them informed, Sam did not refuse because for the Gaffer's approval he would do anything. Except, perhaps, wade into a lake.

- - - -

Next day Sam was hard put to keep his promise to the Gaffer. He still needed to collect the pay, so before second breakfast, he crept into Bad End, back down the hallway (this time lit by spider-shaped lamps) and back to the dining room where he heard a quill scratching and a calculator clicking. He stood breathlessly in the doorway until he heard Mr. Frodo say in a cruel singsong: _"What do you want, Sam?"_

"It's what the Gaffer wants, if you follow me, Sir." Sam trembled further into the door. Frodo was alone, figuring expenses or something. On the chandelier long white fang-things hung, tinkling from the breeze that emitted from the open window.

"_Oh, yes, his pay,"_ Frodo continued in that singsong. The young Baggins stood and felt along the table and walls, opening secret compartments and closing them with a mutter. At last he reached into the curtains and pulled out a roll of taped-together monies; he snagged a few off and pushed them into Sam's hand – and even as he did so, he caught Sam by the ear.

"Sooo," hissed Frodo, twisting the ear. "I suppose you've been spying; oh yes, I've seen you slinking around. Know all about the Party, don't you, noser. All about the hundred fireworks, all about the twenty tons of cakes, all about the thousands of special-ordered presents…"

"No, Sir, oww, not all of that! Oww."

"I will release you, Sam, if you promise to tell _no one._"

"I won't, Sir, that is, I will, Sir, I mean--"

"You are so slow, honestly, I don't know why I bother." Frodo released the gardener's assistant.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry; I know how stupid I am! I'll try to tell nobody."

"I'll be watching you, Sam. One peep and you'll be as dead as a pony in a Dragon's mouth."

"Y-y-y-y-y-yes, Sir."

Sam, when back in the poisonous rosebushes, found concentrating difficult, partially due to his torn ear; but also it was due to his great confusion, having promised two different things. He sighed.

A few minutes later he looked up, wiping dirt on his pants, to see a half-dozen fervent faces looking back at him.

"Hey man," said the leather-clad lad, Mr. Merry. "What's this? They say at the Dragon there's gonna be a Party. Is it true?"

"Yeah man!" Pip squeaked from somewhere.

Sam stood and gulped.

"C'mon! Tell us," belched Flabby Bolger.

"No! I don't know anything!" Sam hastily began clipping the gingkoes.

"You do soooo!" Pippin squealed again.

"Tell us, man." Merry kicked open the gate with a leather boot.

"I'm cool too!" Pippin followed close behind, kicking the already open gate. They filed in.

"Tell us," a young Grubb wheedled as he stomped on the grass. Sam dumbly shook his head.

"Tell us." Merry sliced a chunk from a palm tree with his pocketknife.

"No! I know nothing!"

"Yeah! Teeell us!" Pippin threw rocks onto the carnivorous flowers who weakly cried out as their lives were flattened. Folco Boffin tore off a fence post and beat the rosebushes while Flabby uprooted the potted plants and ate them.

"Nooo!!" Sam clutched his head, weeping. "I'll never tell! I'll never tell you that Mr.-Bilbo-is-having-a-party-with-about-a-hundred-fireworks-twenty-tons-of-cakes-thousands-of special-ordered-presents-and…" Sam gasped and quickly clamped his hands over his mouth.

The nephews froze, and then dropping all defenseless plants (though Pippin threw one last rock) ran down the lane. Pippin took off for Tookland, Merry for Buckland, but since there was no Grubb, Bolger, or Boffinland, the others ran into Hobbiton screaming PARTY, PARTY!

- - - -

By next morning the only midget in the Shire who did not know of Bilbo's coming Grand Birthday Party of Special Magnificence was Ted Candyman and only because he was trapped in the dumpster outside the Green Dragon.

It was little surprising that right before elevensies the Sackville-Bagginses had arrived at Bad End from Sackville.

They came up the lane, their three nostrils taking in snuff. Otho S-B reached his walking stick over the gate and somehow with a single sweep opened all of its locks; thus they invited themselves in. Sam Gamgee, peeking out of the mutilated rosebushes where he had been busy bandaging, cried: "Hey! Mr. Bilbo will see no visitors – I mean, he's out!"

"Out? Fiddlesticks! He will see _us_. Out of my way, Gamgee, you penniless bumpkin!" Otho battered Sam aside, Lobelia S-B following to do likewise with her umbrella. Young Lotho S-B looked conceitedly down his nose at the felled gardener and away again. It wasn't worth it.

Otho swung his stick at the door. "Bilbo! OPEN UP!" Lobelia, meanwhile, strangled the bell string.

"Should I check the windows?" asked their son. But he needed not to. The door cracked open and Otho crammed his stick in ere it could be re-shut.

"Bilbo! How's the health?" The S-Bs had never forgiven Bilbo for his unnatural vitality. Otho himself was sagging and all the powder of Umbar and hair dye of Ered Luin could not disguise it… Still, Otho and Lobelia hoped Bilbo would drop dead one of these days since one could not push too many unnatural buttons at once and hold them all down.

Bilbo opened the door wide, his mustaches quivering. "Still kickin' " He cackled and performed a double back-flip down the hall. The S-Bs took the opportunity to barge in. They looked around for dust or a cobweb to criticize, but finding none grew only more irritated.

Bilbo cartwheeled back over to stand before Lobelia and Otho; at the same time Frodo came in from hidden corridor only to find himself face-to-face with Lotho. Frodo's stare at his archenemy was as cold as the ice of Helcaraxë. At his entrance, Otho's lip curled and Lobelia sniffed. Even if Bilbo managed to die, Frodo, his adopted heir, would still have to be taken care of – yes, this young mongrel had cheated Otho and his son out of the inheritance. This was Bilbo's greatest offense, and it could be speculated that Bilbo's merciless taunts to his disinherited heir had added several lines around Otho's face.

Otho said to Bilbo: "We were out on a little, normal stroll and could not help but stop by." Sackville was fifty miles away.

"_Lovely!_" Bilbo sharpened his fingernails with a filer.

"You are certain your health is good? These things can creep up on you, you know," Otho paused to cough into his kerchief. "Looking after a home this big can be stressful. If ever you need to retire someplace smaller…"

"_Maybe,_" cut in Frodo, "he has _someone _to help him. If he indeed _needed_ help."

"Children, especially _strange, orphaned_ children, should not speak out of turn." Frodo, though not o'age yet at 32, was certainly no child, and he made some rude gestures at the S-B. Otho turned again to Bilbo but Bilbo was gone. So he took some snuff and turned his ruthless eyes to Frodo, whose hands had dropped.

"Now what is this about a Grand Party? When is it to be and for what purpose?"

Frodo smirked. "For Bilbo's birthday. He'll be 111 y'know. And know what else? I don't think you're invited."

Otho's face pinkened up to his dyed hair roots.

"You insolent boy!" Lobelia just only did not knock off Frodo's nose with her umbrella. "Not that I expected decency here. Even with the noble name of Baggins one can fall, cohering with the likes of Bilbo or the mad Tooks or those worthless waste Gamgees."

"I happen to think very well – yes, more than some people with high names – of the Gamgees. In fact, they are worth more than 3 Sackvillers times the cube of pi."

No one was more shocked at this statement than Sam, who was recovering consciousness on the walkway. Frodo meant anything with sincerity as long as it contradicted the S-Bs.

Otho, for his part, looked ready for brutal murder – suddenly he yelped, jumping into the air, holding his backend. Lobelia shrieked and waved her hands as though to ward off unseen pokes. Lotho took up his father's walking stick and swung it around; it was snatched from him to float in midair and snap in half.

The S-Bs stumbled out the door into the lawn. Frodo felt a pumping pulse in the air and a powerful hum; a beam of blue light shot from nowhere and the mailbox, an inch from Otho's fleeing head, was caught in the beam and vaporized. "Drat!" said a bodiless voice.

When the S-B's had disappeared down the hill, Frodo shut the door to Sam's gaping face. Bilbo stood beside him once again, guffawing and twirling Precious around the tip of his pinky. In his other hand was his staff on which the Eye of the Monkey still smoked.

"Sorry you missed, Uncle Bilbo."

"Just a spot of bad luck; we'll get 'em next time." Bilbo slapped his knee and snapped his fingers, after he had put Precious safely away in an old leather snuffbox. Bilbo had turned Bad End inside out for his ring after the Pippening and had at the last moment of despair found Precious humming innocently in the bathtub. ("Trying to make a break for the sea, eh? Weeell…") Bilbo kept the ring within reach ever since.

Frodo was not thinking of Presh; he thought of yesterday when he had told Bilbo of Sam's treachery and had suggested several horrible punishments (like hanging him by his ears while plucking out his toe hairs one by one) – but Bilbo, oddly, had not seemed interested. Now as Frodo looked at his older relation he felt a new admiration for the deviousness of Bilbo's mind. Bilbo had known Sam would blab it all (he could not keep a secret). No, Bilbo had not wanted the Party to be kept clandestine; it was his intention to work the Shire into a frenzy before the Party commenced. He was going to milk out to the very last ounce a cruel anticipation till all the Shirefolk excited themselves to death. Oh yes, to death.

**To be continued**


	5. The Party Unleashed

**Chapter 5: The Party Unleashed**

A cloud of cigar smoke choked the room. Somewhere in the haze was a table where cards were being drawn, studied, and licked for luck. The players, oblivious to the fact that they had no air, sweat in tense concentration. One player, so much taller than the others he stuck out like a mountain in the mist, laid his hand down, face up. "Sorry fellas, looks like I win."

There were groans and sighs as the other players threw down their cards and pushed over to the tall man his winnings. The man greedily gathered the monies into his arms. In a brief break of the cigar smoke, one could see his long, dirty, tobacco-stained beard; his patched-up robes, grey from great age; and a crooked, pointy hat wherein some sort of creature tussled about. He also had an unnatural long nose that was said to twitch at the smell of profit.

He stood, stooping under the ceiling. "Well, so long. Better luck next time…" Suddenly something flittered down from his baggy sleeves. Then another something and another – cards. Cards trickled out steadily at first, then in an avalanche, pouring, pouring to no end into a pile. The Green Dragon denizens speechlessly looked on for long minutes until finally the last ace fluttered down and hit the top of the heap with an almost audible _ding. _A minute more of silence.

"Well," the old man cleared his throat. "I guess I'd better… go!" He dropped his monies to snatch his boat paddle, which he used at a walking stick, and fled to the door. The other gamblers had closed their jaws and gained their feet to charge after, brandishing chairs and spoons.

Outside the tavern, the old man had a cart waiting. He leaped on, and flat upon his stomach, one leg still dangling out, he hastily paddled his two mules. "Hiyah! Fly!" The speed of their takeoff knocked him backwards. The cart rattled along the road, scattering clucking chickens, tilting and shaking, scarcely stayed upright, even after the mob had been outrun. Cards fluttered in the dusty turbulence behind.

Several hobbit children on a hill had stopped their play to stare down at an approaching dust cloud and soon saw a cart blanketed inside. In the cart jolted tied-down barrels, some bearing a large red _G._ "G for Grand!" squealed an obese lass. Actually it was for _Gasoline, _but that does not matter. They ran down the hill, cheering: "It's Gandalf! Gandalf! Fireworks, Gandalf!"

The old man did not slow. "Outa my way!" The children shrieked and fled as the mule cart flew over them.

Up and up the hill he went at a maniac's speed, just hugging the curves with the wheels' edges. People peered out their windows and hastily shut their blinds at this passing. He cut a particularly nasty 90° turn; then with a terrific suddenness, Gandalf pulled the mules to a screeching, head-over-heals halt – before the spiked gate of Bad End.

* * *

Since April, Bad End, usually replete with unwanted visitors, was now infested by them… like roaches. Sam Gamgee was at his short wit's end to keep them out. No matter the vigilance and precautions he took, scores slipped into the lawn; he could not be awake and everywhere at once! And with so many hairy feet trampling the landscaping, he had to constantly fix the damage and guard the premises _on top of_ doing his usual gardening. Worse, the Gaffer now hobbled over each day in hopes of being told something Party-ish and never failed to impart unto Sam his advice as he did so.

So it was all that summer: throngs of gogglers hung around outside the fence day and night. The rabble cheered and screamed for news of the Party, just the smallest piece of news, if one of the Bagginses showed so much as a hair. (Bilbo had begun to lift his hand in and out of windows just to hear the rising and falling hoopla). They slipped through the window cracks, under doors, down the chimney; one came in through the mail and another by borrowing under the lawn and into the parlor. The madness steadily progressed. F. and B. Baggins were regularly dropkicking "curious" relations and well-wishers out the door. If Bilbo grumbled over the interruptions, he was enjoying the stir – lunacy – he had caused.

By the end of June, mad rumors had ravaged the whole Shire over what Bilbo's Special Magnificence Party would contain – because knowing Bilbo it _would be_ specially magnificent. Pure gold napkins! Troll belly dancers! An Olympic-sized pool of gravy and roast beef! Yet none were verifiable because Bilbo had said diddily, and even Sam had heard nothing certain since April. (It could be thought, though, that Bilbo had started the rumors; in fact, it was very likely).

Fervor and suspense had risen to a shatter-point; one young Grubb had even run off a cliff crying, "I can't take it anymore!" (He was OK). And that was only one of similar incidents.

It seemed the madness could go no further, but by the dwindling days of summer, it did, thanks to an added anxiety. Though the Party was only a few weeks away, did not appear to be in preparation. No food had been ordered. Not a single invitation had been seen. Hobbits began to bite nails, pull hair, and have cardiac arrests. Each had a single dread thought: "What if it is only _I_ who has no invitation, and everyone _else_ does?" More terrible still, and this was not even dared to be whispered out loud, what if Bilbo was not… really… actually… having… a Party?

The crowds that held daily vigils outside Bad End grew larger and larger, and 'twas said later that as many were gathered there when September opened as lived in a single Farthing. They waited to learn something… anything… to put an end to this anticipation agony.

Frodo Baggins in these days too felt antsy. It was nerve wrecking to have strangers popping out from behind draperies and under furniture; once while brushing his teeth, he happened to look into the mirror and saw hands groping from the secret door behind the toilet. Even he wondered whether Bilbo was going too far in procrastinating the invitations and food-orders. "All in good time," his uncle had wheezed to his queries.

Perhaps all this would not have bothered Frodo so if Bilbo had not been acting so much more strange and mysterious than, well, usual. Often his uncle would sit on the bamboo chair in his study, hours on end, stroking Precious and whispering the trinket's name over and over. Whenever Flópi was around they shut themselves away; even Frodo dared not listen at the door if that Dwarf was inside, and so he could only guess what horrible plots they were hatching. And when Frodo could be with Bilbo, Bilbo always would point to something and say: "Frodo, you'll have to not forget to dust the candelabra." He would reply: "You mean you'll dust the candelabra." Bilbo would look at him strangely and say "No". Or, "Frodo, remember to wax the doorknobs." "You mean you'll remember to wax the doorknobs." Bilbo would again look at him strangely. "No."

Frodo began to Suspect Something.

Flópi actually returned several times after his visit in the previous autumn, carrying sacks on his back. He always grumbled, when he put them down and counted them, that he must have dropped one somewhere in Wilderland; thus he always left again quickly to retrieve his missing baggage. And Kei Kuhn's visits were scarce and short; each time the expert treasure hunter entered Bad End he wore garlic from his ears instead of gold and anti-hexes around his neck. On every instance when he saw Bilbo, he crossed himself. "Kuhn's a nice guy," Bilbo whispered to Frodo once. "But he's so superstitious."

In the final week before the Party, Flópi and Kei Kuhn were at last both there with all of their cargo stowed away safely in the floor under Bilbo's antique broom collection. Only Gandalf and his goods had not arrived – and a month overdue at that. "Drat that codger," Bilbo said in growing angst. "Reliable as a roasted chicken for eggs."

Bilbo had had little time for himself lately, as the Party had so many details to be worked out and visitors constantly needed bashing. But finally, at three days before the Party, he found a moment of quiet. (Relatively speaking; it was a hurricane of groans and weeping outside). He lifted his golden pen and sighed happily. "Now… I can get started on my book."

He had not so much as lifted his hand when he heard a pounding like thunder, tires screech, a crash, and an "ouch." Bilbo ignored it and started humming "That's What Bilbo Baggins Likes" - he then heard a scraping at the door. Loading his pistol, Bilbo walked leisurely to the front entrance. On opening, he saw a hovering cloud of dust, absolutely no mob of deranged Hobbits (his thoughts lingered on his handiwork proudly), and… he looked at his open door. "!" There were giant scratches in it; the electric-green paint was peeling away in long tendrils, as if a Dragonet had used it as a scratching post.

The ex-expert treasure hunter at last noticed the old man filling his sleeves with the moneys he kept under the doormat. Only one man scratched people's front doors. "Gandalf! Late again, as usual."

"Indeed," Gandalf ignored the last part. "I am Gandalf and Gandalf means me!" He waved his arms around, sending the moneys flying like missiles.

"Yes, yes, yes, of course."

Gandalf bent over on his paddle to have a good look at the Hobbit. "Why, Bilbo, you've changed!" The conjurer took in the monocle, the powdered wig, the jeweled buttons, the many awards on his jacket for goodness-knows-why; and lastly he eyed wearingly the pistol in Bilbo's one hand and the evil blue-jeweled staff in the other. Gandalf thought with some wistful remorse about the innocent fellow who had stood at this door sixty years before: gullible, quiet, boring, always eager to be kind… Gandalf did not like to deal cards with someone of equal deviousness, after all. He had hoped he might regain some of the winnings he had lost in his flight. Tough luck.

Bilbo toed loose moneys back under the mat. "By the by, where's the cash you owe?"

"Eh? Oh – oh!" Gandalf pretended to make a search of his pockets. "Know what, I left my wallet in my other robes…" He stepped into the hole and cracked his head against a ceiling beam.

"Well, pull the cart around back before it's sabotaged," Bilbo said as he walked down the hall. "Flópi knows what to do with it."

Afterwards, Bilbo invited the con-artist into the kitchen and set out the five-day-old donuts. "I was thinking," said Bilbo, discreetly munching on an _Ulmo Bar©_. "Let's call it even; that is to say, I'll take your delivery and forget about your debt."

Gandalf brushed rainbow sprinkles from his beard. "Now then, there were some additional expenses…"

Suddenly several Hobbits lads led by Pippin dropped from a trap door in the ceiling and ran into the hall. They must have run into Flópi, for the Dwarf roared and the Hobbits ran back the other way to the exit, screaming and sobbing. Flópi laughed meanly.

Then Frodo popped out from the pantry. "Uncle Bilbo, I found a dead rat in that rock candy for the Party."

"Eh? A rat? Save it for the S-Bs."

Frodo shrugged and threw the decaying rodent back into the crate. "And Bilbo? Won't you be sending out the _invitations _soon?" All his thoughts were bent on those accursed invitations.

"Oh, there's no point. I'll wait for the day before. Give 'em some constipation." Bilbo cackled through his expensive chocolate.

Frodo noticed the old man for the first time. "Gandalf." He nodded coldly.

Gandalf, caught dropping spoons into his sleeve, fumbled with a fork so to appear to be polishing it with his robes. "Uh, yes, hello Franz."

* * *

True to his word, Bilbo waited till the last 24 hours to send the invitations off. The postmen were seized with terror at the sight of a wild black-bearded Dwarf hauling a caravan of wagons to them at the break of dawn and dumping a mountain of golden-addressed envelopes. Some of the postal workers ran away and hid themselves; they were never seen again. So in diminished numbers, the postmen trekked through every corner of the Shire. Perilous it was, for swarms of Hobbits, wild for an invite, ambushed them and did them violence. Many invitations were lost or eaten, and many a Hobbit's heart was broken at an empty mailbox (though they came to the Party anyway). And thousands of _thank-you and yes we'll come's _were sent out that same day to the poor, heroic postmen's horror. In Bad End, Bilbo shoveled all those thank-you notes into the stove, cackling, cackling.

Outside the garish hobbit hole, the mob had grown more intense – it was the dread Eve of the Party. Young Pippin had climbed onto the mailbox and in his high-pitched voice led an endless chorus of "Part-y! Part-y! Part-y!"

Sam was unable to keep them back any longer, and now had strength only to lean against the beaten down rosebushes and pant, waiting for the end. It surely would have been the end if Flópi had not materialized beside him, wielding a rusty, iron chain.

"Back! Back!" The Dwarf whipped into the ever-pressing multitude. Sam nodded, trying to look helpful. They kept it up, pretty successfully, the rest of the day. On towards night the pressure loosened. Now the Shirefolk could only wait.

Around midnight, a black messenger – Bilbo, that is, he could not hide that wig even under a hood – stole away to the Green Dragon and roused the cook. "I need fifty tons of goods cooked for It tomorrow." He had just been to the grocer, who had torn out his foot hair in madness at the sudden enormous order. As for the cook, his eyes filled with tears. He could not refuse, though.

It was the Dawn of the Party Day. The black clouds that usually hovered over Bad End parted in a single gap directly over the hill, emitting crimson beams of sunlight. The forms of those who were once Hobbits had not slept that night. They craned their creaking necks to the dawn with burning eyes; it had come. The day had come. Now over the thousands was SILENCE. What could be said after all those slow weeks of torment? Their minds were empty things, blank and ruined.

Suddenly all eyes turned to the door… It was opening slowly, slowly, ever so slowly. A figure emerged. Breaths were caught, hearts were stilled, food was dropped… but it became apparent in the blood-red light that it was not Bilbo; it was his outlandish hireling, Flópi. He held a parchment, which he unfurled to a length of nine feet.

"Hear ye, hear ye," said the Dwarf's booming voice. "B. Baggins' Birthday Party of Special Magnificence – also commemorating the coming-o-age Birthday of the esteemed F. Baggins – will commence at 11:13 _ante meridiem _precisely, at which time the gate shall open. Till then, well-wishers will be shot." And Flópi rolled up the parchment and slammed the door.

* * *

**Notes:** "Gandalf means me!" is a spoof on the dramatic introduction Gandalf gives for himself (with a crack of lightning to boot) in Rankin/Bass's _The Hobbit_. I've been watching that movie since I was 4 and I still think it's pretty funny. : P


	6. Day of Doom

**Chapter 6: Day of Doom**

Sam checked his watch. 11:45. Bilbo still had not come out, and the masses were, well, so horrible that Sam had no word for it; but it was a Pretty Bad situation. He had to sit there by the gate and open it at Bilbo's signal – what that was he did not know. The hobbits beyond the gates in ragged and broken voices begged him to open up, and this was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Beside him with a shovel bent the Gaffer, pretending to garden. He had gotten over the fence (newly installed with electricity) some time ago and had insisted on the shovel, though Sam protested that shoveling was not the Head Gardener's job. The Gaffer ignored him and went on digging nothing. At least it was so noisy that Sam could hear only a few of the Gaffer's words-o-wisdom: "Never get caught in the rain, Sam; water's downright unnatural and what will _they _say?" And "Keep your nose out of the dirt and no dirt will get in your nose, if you take my meaning." And "Are you listening, Sam, you worthless son?"

"What?" But just then there was an almighty hush and the door opened… again.

* * *

Bilbo had stood in the front hall before the looking-glass since 11:21. He was making final nudges and tweaks on his great red turban and traveling cape, as though all eternity were before him. He polished his monocle for the seventh time, then decided his mustaches could use a _leetle_ more wax.

"Are we about ready?" asked Frodo grumpily. He and Flópi stood nearby; Gandalf was stooping.

Bilbo inspected his cuffs for dust. "Yes, yes, just about. What _is _your hurry?"

"They cannot last much longer." Frodo looked out the window to see several hobbits being caught up in ecstasy and drifting into the sky.

"Funny, isn't it?" said Bilbo with that cackle.

No else laughed, and Gandalf coughed with so much suggestion that Bilbo finally said "Alright!" and turned to the door. But he did not immediately go out. He stood facing the closed entry for seven minutes, humming the _Bewitched_ theme music. Then, cracking his knuckles, Bilbo took up his Eye of the Monkey staff, felt Precious nestled in his pocket, and told Flópi to open the door…

A cheer swelled at his appearance, like the rippling of water when a troll dives into a kiddy pool. Directly upon him shone the noon sun, flashing blindingly on the thousands of jewels and crystals that covered every square-millimeter of his outfit. He was like some sort of Vala of old, terrible and wonderful to see. Bilbo raised his hand as though to silence the cacophony, and then suddenly in mid-raise snapped his fingers, saying loudly, "I believe I forgot something."

Bilbo turned back into Bad End and banged it shut. Back in the hall, he bent over double and cackled.

The other three looked at him. "What did you forget?" Frodo asked, knowing the answer.

"Ohhh, I _forget_." Bilbo wiped tears from his eyes with a mithril hankie. Five minutes more, and the birthday Baggins recovered. He went out again, flanked by his nephew and two cohorts.

The crowd was not pretty. Bolgers and Grubbs rolled along the fence, insensible to the 200-volt shocks. Brandybucks had fashioned a battering ram, and some Tooks had built a catapult. Even Bilbo's re-appearance did little to calm them; but when it seemed he was not going back into the hole, they all pressed as close as was livable to the fence.

Bilbo threw out his hands. "I will open the gate!" A roaring cheer. "AFTER you all have lined up alphabetically."

So following another twenty minutes pounding of feet and kicking up of dust, Sam unlocked the gate. Never was such a cheer heard again on the earth.

The first comer was Pippin Took, who had shoved his way to the front. Bilbo ordered Flópi to roll out a barrel. "Gimme!" said Pippin, and without waiting, plunged himself into the gift barrel. A moment later the young Took leaped out with a howl and sobbed to the back of the line.

Bilbo held his sides while the next family, the Aardvarks, walked into the yard with blank faces of wonder. "Well, well, who have we here?" Bilbo snapped on a glove and reached into the barrel as the Aardvarks held out their eager hands. "Here's one for you… and you… and you… and no, I don't your welcome."

The Aardvarks looked down: wiggling in their hands were foot-long, oozing, bulging slugs. Shriek and shake their arms as the Aardvarks might, the fat, slimy creatures simply stuck. With dances of horror they ran up the hill to the Party tents. The Gaffer waved his shovel at them.

Meanwhile the Sackville-Bagginses had thwacked their way past the Bracegirdels, Bolgers, and Boffins. When, the day before, they had received their invitation, which had been the size of a posterboard and replete with gold lace, Otho had declared: "If we must go then we must." They would not admit they were curious about their cousin's party. "Curious" was not a word they used.

At their advent, Bilbo called, "Frodo, get their special package." And then flashing his ruby waistcoat, he drawled, "_Isn't_ this a pleasure? Whoda thought _you'd_ be alive to come to my hundred-eleventy birthday? A party without the S-Bs is a _dead_ one, that's what all my Umbar friends always say."

Lobelia and Otho's sneers were so large that their faces twisted completely to one side and left them incapable of speech. So without resistance Bilbo took their gift from a damp sack and put it in Lobelia's fist: the moldy rat.

Otho spluttered like a walrus and waved his walking stick over Bilbo's eye. "You-you outlandish farce of a Baggins! You and your outlandish friends will come to a Bad End, you will see! Then we will have this place – you cannot live forever!" Otho marched up the hill; Lotho finished his glaring duel with Frodo (Lotho lost), and Lobelia threw the rat at Bilbo. The rat fell short as though having hit an invisible barrier, and Gandalf furtively picked it up and popped it into his robes.

* * *

The Partygoers were not unsatisfied so far as food went. With blurring speed the cook produced troll steaks and hotdogs, mushrooms and pancakes; sauces were provided for in 2-gallon buckets placed on each table. The dessert was genuine Erebor rock candy, and not a tooth was left unchipped from that repast. Frodo, as host – Bilbo had disappeared after the gift-giving – was left to fill the ale-jugs of the gobbling Hobbits. "Here, Frodo! More ale, lad, hurry up," shouted the whole Shire, until Frodo at last plunged a hose in to the ale-reservoir and turned on a sprinkler. Sighing, he plopped down onto a cow carcass and just in time for Bilbo's reemergence.

"I hope you are all having fun eating yourselves to death!"

"Wheeee!" said a squeaky voice (Pippin).

"Glad to hear it! This evening's entertainment will now begin with Flópi, who will sing for us a traditional Dwarven ballad."

Bilbo gave his ground to the Dwarf, and suddenly some horrible sound, like a rake scraping over a chalkboard, ripped the air. Hobbits fell backwards from their stomachs and tore at their ears.

"Boo! Boo!" said the squeaky voice again.

Some time later the ballad ended. "Thank you, Flópi, thank you!" Bilbo applauded. "Next Kei Kuhn, with dark arts from the furthest East, will burn tires before your very eyes."

While the rancid smell plumed over the eaters, Gandalf sat on a barrel in the back, playing solitaire and loosing. He saw Bilbo give his signal, and so began to throw together his kegs of gasoline, too absorbed in his work to notice a hobbit-lad hop into his jumble of barrels. Flicking his lighter, Gandalf lit the tail of fat rocket and turned to make a dash for it. "Cooool, I'm gonna get the big one," said a squeaky voice.

"No! Don't touch the - "

"And now," Bilbo announced, "Some fireworks, courtesy of - "

An explosion rocked the hill. All the fireworks drenched in gasoline had gone off as one in an up-climbing fireball of blinding, squealing light. In the hot shockwave tumbled the cook and all the food, down away to some other land.

All the hobbits had hit the grass and were unharmed, not counting several soiled pairs of pants. Eating soon resumed. Bilbo afterward made a round about the Hill, telling crude jokes to his guests, and then hopped onto a table, kicking Rory Brandybuck's ale onto Rory Brandybuck. Down to the crumbs, the hobbits had nothing else to do but look at their host.

"_**M**__y people!" _Bilbo extended his right hand._ "Fellow citizens of the Shire," _he extended his left._ "Five score and eleven years ago I was born. Since then I've wanted to say things I cannot say on the podium; but I just wanted to let you know. Then on coming there and back again, I had a dream of living in PEACE and QUIET. Thus I asked not how your shire can torment you; I asked how you can torment your shire." _The audience had begun to snore._ "I know not of what course others may take; but as for me, give me silence or give me death! And so on an ending note I must say Good-bye. This it the END. A Bad End. I gotta go now… _Delenda est Sackvillo_!"_

There was a magic _pop _and a hissing of teargas – and Bilbo was gone. As one, the offended guests leaped up, eyes streaming, to roar: "OUTRAGE!"

"Outlandishness!" sputtered Rory to all who would listen. "Outlandishness!"

Down below, the door of Bad End cackled and opened itself, and in the hall burst Bilbo from the air. He gave Precious a flip and popped him into his pocket. "Flópi! Kuhn! Is everything ready?"

Flópi grumbled indistinctively from somewhere. The Dwarf was busy pouring all of Bilbo's more prized junk out of Bad End's endless nooks.

As the hobbit danced around the front hall, Kei Kuhn stepped in with a suitcase. "I'm leaving now, B."

Bilbo stopped dead in his tracks. "What? But you've got to move this stuff out of here."

"Sorry, I've stayed too long already. I told you to kill Flópi and now it is too late." the dark man said sadly. He then shuddered as he set his eyes on Bilbo's staff. "I'm going before the Eye of the Monkey's Bad Luck destroys us all. It's not that I don't like ya, don't think that – but I'd not have come back, except your pay's good." Kei Kuhn extended his hand. Bilbo knew what he wanted and instead clasped it in a quick handshake and showed the expert treasure hunter to the door.

No sooner was that parting made than Gandalf crawled in through the window. "Still going on with your plan, I see." Crash.

"Yes, yes; Flópi, hurry! And don't forget to empty the passage behind the toilet!" Bilbo shoved his silverware into a locked drawer and said to the conjuror, "I'm getting outa the Shire. I think I'll take a long journey, maybe to the Dale casinos, very nice, I've heard." Gandalf coughed. Both knew the fraudulent wizard was not allowed within Dale's city limits. "Then I'll retire somewhere quiet where I can finally start my book."

"And Frodo?"

"I'm leaving him everything. That was always the plan. The S-Bs shall never set their manicured feet in this place. Never! And now I can finally depart knowing they shan't die in peace. Here are the will and deed." Bilbo held out seven copies of each.

"That's all good and well." Gandalf edged toward the jelly jars. "And your ring? You said you'd leave that behind too."

"Did I?"

"I recall it _very _distinctly."

"Well, even if I did say that, I don't care to now. After all, it came to me – my own, my love, my precioussss. I won it fair and sssquare." Bilbo talked rapidly, packing the jelly jars into a suitcase and lugging it towards the front hall.

"I think you've had it long enough – magic rings should be shared, not hoarded for two thousand years. Let it go."

"Oho! _Oho!_ I see; you want it all for yourself, don't you, Gandalf?

"Well – I –well – no – I - "

The Eye of the Monkey crackled as dangerously as the eyes of its holder. "Then take this – Kreeahh!" Bilbo flipped overhead; Gandalf stumbled back, and they met staff-to-staff, thus beginning a very messy duel. In the end, they called it a draw, having hit Bilbo's stuff more than each other.

"Alright then, here's the Thing." Bilbo carelessly tossed a small shiny ring onto the oliphaunt-skin rug. He met Flópi outside with an over-packed wagon. "No hard feelings," he said, shaking Gandalf's hand. There was a buzz of electricity, and Gandalf's beard sizzled outward from every angle. "So long, schmo. And watch out for Frodo!"

Gandalf watched the old crackpot hop down the hill and the eerie blue flames that rose from Hobbiton afterward.

* * *

After Bilbo had vanished and Gandalf had set off all the teargas, Frodo was besieged with questions from foaming hobbits: "Where's he gone, eh? Eh?"

He escaped at last by spraying them with the hose at full power and dashing to Bad End. He found the hole silent and empty, save for Gandalf rattling with the silverware drawer. "So he's really gone. He had been threatening to do it for ages… but I had thought it was just another of his cruel jokes."

"Indeed," Gandalf pretended to straighten a vase. "He left you everything, even his ring – and so, see ya later."

"And where are you going?"

"To do stuff. Oh yes, Frodo, important stuff. Keep it secret. Keep it safe."

"Safe. Right – wait. What?"

But Gandalf had already jumped into his cart and paddled his mules with a _yah!_ The cart flew off, leaving Frodo alone with a mouthful of dust.

* * *

**Notes:** "Delenda est Sackvillo" - _Sackville must be destroyed!_

Sorry Lincoln and King and Kennedy and Henry and, yes, Cato.


	7. Gandalf Talks Much and Says Nothing

**Chapter 7: Gandalf Talks Much and Says Nothing**

Frodo considered Merry Brandybuck to be his closest friend. Let the rest of the Shire be fools and hicks – at least Merry could keep composed. And Frodo needed someone composed. The Shire had discovered during the night that the party-food had been induced with an emetic, and everyone agreed it to be a "poor joke". In demand of answers and apologies they stormed Bad End. All the security and traps Bilbo had set for such occasions had been exhausted. There were just too many of them, and Flópi had gone, Kuhn and Gandalf had fled, and Sam had not been seen – probably dead somewhere, Frodo guessed.

"Merry, stack more mummies over the door." Frodo watched the progress of the barricade when suddenly Flabby Bolger walked out of a room, sucking on a slug.

"Hey Frodo, will there be more food?"

"No."

Flabby processed this for a minute. "Oh. Okay."

"BILBO BAGGINS!" shrilled Lobelia, all too nearby.

"BILBO! _Where are you?_" came also Otho's foul sneer.

"Whadja do, leave the passage open?"

While Frodo throttled Flabby, Merry proceeded to retard the S-Bs.

"You dare hinder us, you Br-r-randybuck?" The clanging of a scuffle ensued and after the shatter of what must have been the Venetian vase collection emerged Otho with beauty mark smudged, Lobelia with hair bent, and Merry with black leather slightly dusty. (The emetic was later pinned to the gravy, and Lotho, who had been particularly greedy with it, was currently bed ridden, and remained so for five weeks).

"Frodo! I should have known! What's all this outlandish 'disappeared forever' nonsense? I demand an explanation! I demand an -" He threw a hand to his mouth. "Lobelia! The bucket, quick!" Otho completed his retch with a dainty sniff.

"Bilbo's gone, gone with the wind."

"Gone! Gone, has he? Where, then?"

"I don't know," Frodo's eyes fogged over. "Somewhere… over the rainbow…"

"Enough! I demand all title documents be handed over now! We'll see who is master of the Hill!"

Frodo smirked and snapped his fingers. Merry wheelbarrowed in a awe-inspiring paper heap, together with the dozen some copies of the will, endorsed by no less than 30 witnesses, including Flópi, Kei Kuhn, Gandalf, and the Gaffer (signed "X"). Otho examined each minutely, with magnifying glass, tongue, and nostrils, pausing now and then to retch. Merry kept close watch on the expensive clutter in the room lest they find their way into Lobelia's umbrella, which was not an uncommon phenomenon.

Finally, as the sun struck three, Otho snapped his fingers in constipated rage. "Blast! Foiled again!" The S-Bs sunk their glares into Frodo's flesh. "Someday, someday soon, this hole will come to its true owners! Mark me, boy, someday. You don't have Bilbo now. Only a Brandybuck and a handful of card-nicking outlandish friends."

"Hey, Gandalf is not my friend. I won't have you insult me under my own roof… Well, the Master of Bad End sends his unwell-wishes."

He waved while Merry plungered them into a fireplace and pulled a lever.

Frodo sat down on a mummified goat in utter exhaustion. Flabby passed on through again, saying between bites of _Yavanna Granola®,_ "Hey, Frodo, that old guy wanted in through the window, so I…"

"You _let _Gandalf in?"

Flabby was saved from a severe throttling by the appearance of Gandalf knocking his head on the lintel. "Mules are in the shop… they should put a sign on that curve… I need to stay a day or three, Frodo, I knew you wouldn't mind."

Frodo got up and locked the silverware drawer, swallowing the key. He washed it down with Jawa juice.

"By the by," Gandalf stuck his nose into the kitchen, pretending not to be jingling jewels out of the picture frames. "Where's the Ring?"

"The Ring," Frodo repeated. "The Ring… right. I had it last night. I put it on the table."

"Then I ate it," offered Flabby from the pantry.

"And he choked!" squealed Pippin from the trap door over the stove. "He choked everywhere! It was kooool!"

"Oh yeah," said Flabby slowly.

"And Merry performed the Heimlich with his boot!"

"The Ring hit Falco's eye."

"And it's right here!"

"Gimme that!" Gandalf snatched it from Pippin and Frodo from Gandalf.

Thus Frodo Baggins settled comfortably into the position of The Baggins, or Money Bags, as the simpler folk called him. He had never been worried about being broke with Bilbo gone; his uncle had so much money stuffed in every cranny, it was impossible that he could have remembered to bring half of it with him.

Years dripped by. Life was dull and Frodo appeared fine by that. He took to having loud parties and watching game shows. Merry often came around; Pippin every other week ran away 4ever and was picked up by an ever-patient Paladin; Sam he verbally abused; Flabby and the rest he ignored. Flópi and Kei Kuhn he never saw, and neither did he see Gandalf, save once, and he did not let him in the house. The S-Bs, as though seeking revenge for Bilbo's slight (or literally trying to annoy him to death) bombarded his round door 7 to 10, Monday through Friday. Frodo wondered what they did 11 to 6, and weekends.

A relief to drudgery came one morning, seven years after The Party. F. Baggins was sitting at Bilbo's old bamboo desk, writing a cruel letter-to-the-editor for the _Hobbiton Gazette_. He heard a squelch of leather and turned to face Merry.

"Hey Frodo, man, did you hear?" Merry was slightly flushed as though he had run all the way up the Hill.

"Tell me tomorrow."

"It's sad, man, but… Otho's croaked."

"What?" Frodo leaped up, spilling ink on his brutal letter. "Finally!" He rubbed his hands together. "What should I wear, what should I wear?" Humming, he decked on a pinstripe suit, Bilbo's red turban, a faded travel cloak, and mauve sunglasses.

He hired a unicorn-drawn limousine to take him to Sackville, arriving just in time for the burial. Lobelia inhaled a sniff that echoed over the hills. And what happened next was called The Scandal for generations of Hobbits. Frodo gleefully wrung Lobelia's hand, thumped Lotho's back, and skipped to the casket. "Otho! How's the health?" he asked, among other crass pleasantries, causing nearby Hobbitesses to choke on their mourning-cupcakes. Then, twirling his walking stick, Frodo danced around the coffin. This was his song:

_Death goes ever on and on._

_Dead as dead could be_

_Now on a head death has gone_

_And now you got it, sucker- not I – heehee!_

It went on much longer, but you get the idea. The coffin was unsettled by a rowdy kick ere the final chorus. This event Lobelia tried to hush up, however, most agreed that the fact was that Otho slipped into a pond and Frodo began handing out balloon animals and throwing confetti.

Even Merry (uninvited - crashing funerals was his _thing_) rose an eyebrow. _The dude can't be blamed in a way, but man, he needs another hobby. Something more philanthropic._

* * *

Far over the flattened hills and raised valleys, to the far east where dark stuck to the atmosphere like tar and the earth shook, as though trying to relieve itself of an itch, voices all at once cried in terror, and just as soon silenced. It was happening. What only happened in the deepest closets of black nightmares. They had awakened. They were coming. Faintly at first, then louder and louder, rumbled a low sound, a sound mysteriously like… chainsaws…

_Bzzzzzzzz sputter Bzzzzzzzzzzz…_

* * *

Frodo woke with his face plastered to his bamboo desk. Rubbing his head and grumbling, he walked to the window. "Sam! Sam! Sam, you stupid stool!"

The assistant gardener, a smile plastered on his face, continued to trim the hedges with his motorized saw. A paperweight hit his head. "What?" He saw Frodo angrily gesturing. "Oh! Sorry, sorry, Mr. Frodo!" He fumbled with the switch, not before falling forwards onto a bush, slicing it neatly in two.

"Try trimming at decent hours!"

"I know, Mr. Frodo! I mean, I ought to have known… but you know how stupid I am!" Another paperweight hit his head, and Frodo closed the window.

He turned and yawned – to pause, mouth still wide. Something clattered in the kitchen. Frodo cocked Bilbo's pistol and crept into the hall. He heard still more clattering, quicker now, and some crashing. It sounded almost as though someone were searching for something…

Frodo pressed his back to the kitchen door, taking a deep breath. Glass crashed on the other side, followed by some sort of snuffling. Whatever It was, It was going to get it. Frodo kicked the door open and charged; he looked down the gun's barrel to an old man in rags once multi-colored, now aged to grey – Gandalf.

"Frodo! I-I've been looking everywhere for you!" The magician slipped on a grin and straitened his bowtie (which was beard-hidden, just so you know).

It had been years since F. Baggins had the displeasure of seeing the ancient fraud. Certainly time had been hard on his patched and repatched beard.

"Get out."

"There is a time for everything: A time to sow and a time to reap, a time to…"

"Die?" Frodo caressed the trigger.

The con-artist cleared his throat. "That brings me to my next point. The end of all we know draws nigh. Rumors of a dark shadow grows in the East… In-laws turn against in-laws… And in the free-lands nary a clean restroom is to be found."

"Pity." Frodo retired to the parlor, Gandalf hunching after.

"The worst is still to come!"

Frodo took up _The South Farthing Times._

Gandalf paced the room. "And the worst _will_ come, then creditors will give no more loans… and then? No more happiness, fuzzy-feelings, or free-samples! But maybe… there is hope! Frodo! I have come with a purpose! Bring it forth! Let the truth set us free!"

"Eh?"

"I never dreamt it in my darkest dreams! I had daren't! Yet here it is. Now comes the final test, the test that will save us or destroy us. Put it to the test of Fire – that is what the gypsy woman said, and by the Tissue of Nienna, so I shall do it. Haven't you been listening, boy, bring forth the Ring!"

Gandalf's staff poked through the sports section. Frodo resisted the urge to not hit him.

Rubbing his bruised eye, Gandalf again lacerated the newspaper. "Bring it forth!"

Rolling his eyes, Frodo tucked away his hair to reveal the gold ring dangling from his lobe. Gandalf did not hesitate before tearing it from its perch.

… Distancing out from Bad End: AHHHHHH!…

"This is the One Ring. It'll have to be destroyed."

"Not Precious!" Pain was forgotten in concern.

"It'll need to be taken away, far away, before the Enemy discovers it. Luckily all his dread servants were destroyed in the War, so we may yet have time."

"Stop calling Presh _It_, he's _He_."

"I was about to say, someone will need to take it away and that someone is…" Gandalf cleared his throat.

Frodo snatched the Ring back and scrutinized it. "Wait… how do you know this is – what was it? – the Rum Ring?"

"A wizard knows."

"What about the test of fire?"

"No time for that now!"

"Let me get this straight. Presh must be hidden, go incognito, sent far, far away?"

"Yes and no."

They both heard a chainsaw being dropped. Gandalf rushed to the window to see what was the matter. He reached out his paddle and caught him a Sam.

"Traitor," hissed Frodo.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Mr. Frodo! I could not help it! I – I mean…"

"What do you know?" shrieked Gandalf. "Speak, or I'll turn you into a frog!"

"Don't let him do it, Mr. Frodo!"

"Ah, go ahead," Frodo waved his hand, curious.

Gandalf coughed something about not having time or enough spell points… "I have a solution, but first you must promise to tell no one about it."

"Under pain of a sadistic death," added Frodo.

"I promise, sirs!"

"You… Will go with Frodo!"

"Yay! To where?"

The Baggins shrugged.

* * *

_**Notes:**__ Apologies for Frodo's behavior._


	8. Bagpipes and Windbags

**Notes:** Didn't think it would happen but here it is.

* * *

**Chapter 8: Bagpipes and Windbags**

The summer sun frowning on his neck, Sam bent over the lawn wielding a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers. By order of his employer, every blade of grass bent, discolored, torn or any way flawed was to be removed.

He'd completed about three square meters so far that day, moving with a brisk efficiency, folded up in his own thoughts. These were happy thoughts. Mr. Frodo, the embodiment of genius and gentility of the West Farthing, trusted him, _him_, Samwise Gamgee, the lowest of low gardeners. Trusted him with his most secret of secrets. Trusted him in his most secret of counsels. Sam remembered, the letters golden and bright as the high noon sun, the words Frodo had uttered years ago to the Sackville-Bagginses -

"_I happen to think very well – yes, more than some people with high names – of the Gamgees. In fact, they are worth more than 3 Sackvillers times the cube of pi." _

He didn't understand the role of the dessert, but the meaning behind it had been unmistakable.

_You can count on me, Mr. Frodo! I won't fail you!_

Beaming at a blade of unhappy yellow, he moved in for the pluck… when a patented leather boot smashed the perfect grass, yellow blade and all, before his face.

"Hey man."

Merry spoke only to a magnifying glass and pair of tweezers.

He saw the back of Sam flying toward the toolshed. He reached the door before Merry could begin his next sentence. But Sam never opened the door, the door flung open itself.

"Hey man!" a squeaky voice shrilled in the shed.

From Pippin, Sam darted to the hedge, prepared for a mighty leap… and tripped hard onto his face over Flabby Bolger. He was consuming grass.

"Let's be cool about this," Merry said, rolling Sam over with a boot. "It's a simple question. What's up with Frodo, man? He's been Suspicious lately."

"Yeah man," Pippin agreed.

"I'll never tell" was what Sam wanted to say, but he knew where that would go, so he kept mum, darting his eyes between the three Nephews.

"He's been Suspicious, man, the last few weeks. He can't hide it. We know he's up to something. We know he's got Gandalf hiding out in his living room…" Merry broke off and ducked. Up the lane shuffled a fat cardboard box, a smiley face squiggled at its front and an old boiler hat taped to its top. It disappeared through the front door.

Merry slicked back his hair and continued. "We know that he and Gandalf are scheming. We know that you know what. So pandy up."

"Pandy! Pandy! Pandy!" Pippin shrieked, zipping a circle around them.

Flabby chewed cow-like, nodding to each word.

"I'll never tell!" declared Sam, in spite of himself. "I shan't!" he vowed. "Never. I shall never tell you that Mr.-Frodo's-leaving-the-Shire-and-selling-Bad-End-so-he-can-hide-a-ring-of-great-evil-and-save-the-world."

He slapped a hand of his mouth with a long gasp.

"The pieces fall together," Merry said. "I suspected as much." He added, "Yo."

"I cool too!" Pippin insisted.

"Now look, man." Merry placed his boot on Sam's chest, who'd feebly attempted to crawl away. "Now we're a Conspiracy, and you're in it."

"I-I-I am?"

"You're gonna be the Informant. Tell us everything Frodo is planning. And if you squeal on us…" The Brandybuck snapped his fingers. Flabby uprooted a blue spruce and downed it in one gulp.

"I-I-I-" Sam blubbered.

"Don't worry, man, it's for Frodo's own good. He's not always right in the head. Not when _Gandalf's _on the prowl."

Pippin and Flabby nodded.

Sam gulped. "Alright. I-I'll do it, Mr. Merry, sir."

Into the AC-blasted Bad End Sam drug his feet to give his daily gardening report. Goosebumps ran over his arms like spiders as he entered Frodo's study. The AC almost blasted him back into the hallway. Icicles hung from the vent, creeping down to the bamboo desk.

Sam's breath froze and hung there. The Baggins sat at the desk, chair swiveled around, his fingertips pressed together in front of his face.

Sam thought, "He knows!"

"Hello, Sam."

The gardener shrieked and tumbled back onto a stuffed Balrog head.

"It's an oven in here." Frodo ran a hand across his brow. "I'm going to the living room."

He stood and straightened his white mink fur suit. Sam struggled to remove his bottom from the trophy. Three heaves did it. He took a parting glance at the face, still twisted in rage for being slain and duly stuffed as a mantle adornment. He shivered and followed Frodo.

The living room was a pit. Soda cans, barbecue chips, and _Ulmo Bar_© wrappers formed rolling hills of many scents. Gandalf sat on the hot pink couch, feet on a fat cardboard box, and a carton of _Fingolfin__'s Best Grinding Ice-cream© _on his lap, watching Oprah interview Círdan the Shipwright.

"Ole suckah," Gandalf belched in good humor, sucking on his spoon. "What?" He raised his greasy eyebrows at their entrance.

"Just wondering," Frodo said. "When you'd be going."

"Tomorrow." Gandalf turned up the volume. "Maybe."

"Whatev. I thought we'd discuss the sale of Bad End."

"Oh, bother." The sweaty sorcerer clicked mute. Commercials had come on anyhow.

Sam whimpered.

"I thought," Frodo went on. "That if it must go to the S-Bs it must be as uncomfortable a process as possible. Preferably with blood."

"Remember Frodo, you're going quietly undercover," Gandalf said. The wizard thought that selling Bad End to the Sackville-Bagginses wouldn't arouse too much suspicion.

"But Mr. Frodo." Sam hiccupped. "You don't mean to be gone forever? I mean, you'll be back after you're done with what-it-was."

"Yeees," Frodo said slowly. "I could hire Flópi to drive them into the streets come January. We'll be done by then."

A flicker of Bilbo's nastiness flashed over his face. "And gaining Bad End only to be booted out – the disappointment will_ kill_ them both."

Frodo had only agreed to Gandalf's plan, the sacrilege of selling the hole that Bilbo had so long and avidly guarded from his Sackville cousins' clutches, because of one thought – if any evil minion did come knocking for a Mr. Baggins, the Mr. Baggins who answered would be _Lotho._ Hence the video cameras he had had Sam install over the front door.

"Still, we need to be convincing. Lobelia'll be suspicious."

"That's _your _business," said Gandalf, clicking off the mute.

And so Frodo plotted. Sam informed. And Gandalf drove up the grocery bill.

The Great Announcement of the sale of Bad End was marked down in the hobbit historians' books as The Day of Sale. Frodo said he had reached the grand age of retirement, 50, and thought he'd spend his golden years in a swampy tourist trap in Buckland called Crickhollow.

Lobelia went into a coma, but came out of it in time to sign the deed. Lotho, her son, still suspecting foul play, took daily vigil with binoculars and x-ray scanners outside the gate to make sure everything Frodo said would be sold remained there.

Frodo kept his word, indeed. All furniture, curtains and rugs were accounted for. It just went into disrepair; the cobwebs would have made Bilbo weep. Frodo hosted wild houseparties that left tables and wardrobes in sawdust and spent monies through the nose on getting himself dunked into a vat of liquid gold and booking entire cruiseliners for himself and not showing up, so that the Gaffer wagged his head at the Green Dragon, "Didn't think I'd see it, but I did. The Money Bags has goned broke. Fetch my legs, Sam, you worthless son of mine."

The Gaffer wasn't taking kindly to Sam's moving away with Frodo Baggins. Sam tried to compromise. "Well, cousin Ham could take care of him. Or my brother Ham... Even Uncle Ham'd be willin'."

The rumors as to why Frodo would do such an unnatural deed ran the gamut of scandal. But everyone did agree on one point – that it was a trap meant to destroy the S-Bs and that Gandalf, who'd been seen dressed as a leper begging outside the Green Dragon, had something to do with it. He was named Shire Public Menace #1 and around that time Gandalf left Bad End, telling Frodo to wait up.

"I need to see Saruman. He's very wise. And very wealthy." He promised to be back by Frodo's birthday, The Day of Move. Frodo didn't believe him

And too soon the Day of Move arrived. Merry, Flabby and Pippin helped. Well, ideally. The reality was Merry packed, Flabby locked himself in the pantry and Pippin shattered vases. Sam's job was to drink the cellars dry so the S-Bs wouldn't get their nostrils into them.

If the sale was a trap, it was a good trap. The S-Bs could not resist. The attainment of Bad End was the purpose of their waking, eating, and sleeping. They came five in the morning. Spectators lined the street. Venders shouted their high-cal wares, and Lotho and Lobelia only too gladly waved and posed for pictures.

They barged their way in to do a minute inspection of the premises, ticking off items from a scroll perhaps nine feet in length. Afternoon rolled in. At five till six, the Time of Tenure, Lobelia made a door-bashing entrance into the hole as the Nephews scurried out with the Bilbo's old bamboo desk.

"Ours at last!" she exclaimed. A large blade swung an inch from her back. She took no notice. For 76 years she'd been pining for this moment. Words tumbled out, and she puffed larger and larger under her tweed blouse. "You've had your laughs. (Haha). Such a repulsive, outlandish sense of humor, I always said so. Well, the joke's up. We've won."

"Ah, but the worse… is yet to come!"

Frodo's features were so evil Lobelia took a step back into the wall and emitted a booming, prolonged fart.

She yelped, turned to the wall and ripped the whoopee cushion off the hook. She again didn't notice a faint clanking like a heavy gate being raised deep in the hole.

"This is your worse?" Spit flew from her mouth. Her face twisted in rage, and her nose vanished under her creased brow. "Mark me, you odious orphan, mark me, you'll come to a Bad End."

Frodo yawned.

Lobelia rattled an empty bean can sitting on a purple ceramic table. "These all the keys?"

"Sure," he lied. "Except the Gaffer's."

"Well, get them back. I won't be murdered in my sleep!"

Lotho entered from his outside inspection, the big blade swinging a hair from his back. He checked his watch. "You have 39 seconds in which to remain legally on this property."

"Whatev," said Frodo, giving Lotho the Finger as he shut Bad End's door behind him for the final time.

He couldn't go back in now, anyhow. He'd conveniently forgotten to dismantle the traps and alarms and also, conveniently, forgotten to tell his Sackville relations how to. Moreover, Lobelia had unwittingly released a family of Mirkwood-native _Humongae Tarentulae_ that Frodo had been growing all summer.

He told Merry, Flabby and Pippin to go on with the cart of his favorite treasures and junk to Buckland. He and Sam would follow.

"NOOOO!" screamed Pippin. "I wanna come with you!" He stomped, kicked, and wailed, and finally threatened to break the yokes of the pigs pulling the cart.

"We're going to walk, you know," Frodo said. If he was going to leave the Shire, he was going to make as slow and queer an exit as possible.

"I DON'T CARE." Pippin took an axe to the squealing draft-pigs.

Frodo rolled his eyes and said, "Alright." Pippin did a victory jig. "BUT no whining."

"I won't!" Pippin shrieked.

Sam's pink face popped from a rose bush.

Frodo scowled. "Sam! There you are, you stooge. Tell the Gaffer he needs to give back the keys. Now."

Sam hiccupped. "Sho thing, bosh." He wobbled into the fence. Tried again for the gate and missed. Finally he rolled over the top and staggered in the Green Dragon's general direction.

"Well, see you, man." Merry waved. Flabby was still hard at work cleaning out a sack of brown sugar. The cart oinked off down the Hill.

At first Pippin was most excited to be hanging out with his cool older cousin. But after two minutes he groaned… after five minutes made a long whine… and in seven minutes he wailed, "I'm tired. I'm hungry. I want to go home!"

Looking somewhat sobered, Sam joined them and fifteen reporters at the bottom of the Hill. Frodo handed him the five pieces of his matching dragon-skin luggage. Thus they began the walk to Crickhollow.

They went on through the night, over and under muddy back roads. From midnight on, Sam had to carry Pippin. Finally, at daybreak, in a picturesque woody clearing next to a creek, Frodo called halt. The gardener fell asleep where he stood. Frodo pinched him awake so he could set up the four-poster bed Sam carried in the luggage. Frodo slept soundly and Pippin found his stash of _Ulmo Bars©_ and dumped the wrappers around Sam's feet.

Frodo woke at noon to Sam's tentative shakes. "Um, Mr. Frodo, I thought we'd best be eating and-" The Baggins stuffed the comforter into the gardener's mouth and yawned.

His Tookish cousin was zigzagging around the camp, flailing his arms. "Weeeeee! I'm cool!"

"I need coffee," Frodo said. "Get some water, Pippin."

"NO." Pippin ran a loop from the campfire to the woods. "NO!"

Frodo watched Sam break down the bed. "Gandalf should have met up with us by now. Of course I didn't count on it."

Sam's mouth was too full of polyester to answer.

"NO!" Pippin had completed another lap. "NO…" And he faded into the woods again.

In the end, Sam fetched the water. Pippin screamed in outrage, spilled it, and dashed to get it himself, sloshing most of it onto his shirt. Sam boiled the little that was left in the coffee maker and handed the pot to Frodo. Frodo dumped it against a tree and declared he preferred Starbucks.

As they emerged from the Starbucks placed conveniently across the way between two oak trees, they heard an ominous clip-clop up the road.

"May be Gandalf." Frodo sipped his chocolate latté. "Let's give him a heart attack, if nothing else."

They hid behind the Starbucks sign. Pippin giggled and squirmed as the rider and horse came into sight.

It wasn't Gandalf. The suit was tailored and the hat was new. The face had no skin. In the sockets rolled red coals; Frodo had the feeling the man could look out the back of his head.

A chainsaw idled in the rider's hand. He passed them by, muttering in some mummyish language. Once the horse's rump was turned, the hobbits spilled out from the sign.

"What a weirdo!" Pippin shrieked in delight.

Frodo slurped noisily on the last chunks of his latté. "Sure was a freak."

Sam slapped himself. "Samwise, you stupid slug. I just remembered, Mr. Frodo, I meant to tell you. I seen that fellow before."

"So?"

"Well, Mr. Frodo," Sam said, standing on one toe. "_I _didn't see him. It was the Gaffer, you see, if you take my meaning…"

"On with it." Frodo crushed his cup, fantasizing it was Sam's head.

"Well, sir, I went for the keys, just like you said. I first went to the Green Dragon, by the Gaffer wasn't there. I thought that funny and went back up the Hill to home and there he was…"

**/Flashback/**

"Haven't you gone off with the Mr. Baggins yet, Sam?" the Gaffer warbled, prunish head shaking side to side. "Worthless son, always tardyin'. And never caring 'bout what happens to your poor old Gaffer."

"Sorry, Gaffer, I know I'm like that. But, um, Mr. Frodo needs his keys back."

"_Does_ he now." The Gaffer's drooped eyes widened so slightly. "I knew you hadn't come back to say goodbye to your Gaffer. No affection to be spared for an old man. That's Sam, always thinks only for hisself. If I die, Sam, it'll be _your _fault. And don't forget. What was it you wanted?"

"Um… Bad End's keys."

"Yes, that. Didn't never wanted Otho's offspring breathing in my gardens. All that devotion, all that time, all for nothing. Over water the geraniums, they will, you wait. I always said Mr. Frodo was a queer 'un. Now off to Buckland of all queerlands. Well, unnatural birds always roost over water, that's what I always said."

"Yes, but the keys…"

"Speaking of unnatural, I'd just the most unnatural customer come about. One of Mr. Frodo's friends, I reckoned..."

**/Flashback/**

A tall dude decked in a black suit, black top hat and shiny black shoes rode a black horse up the Hill up to the Gaffer's porch. An animated skull sat where a healthy head should be. A chainsaw whirred in his right hand, chopping neatly the top off the Gaffer's mailbox as he entered the yard. The rider looked at the Gaffer and gargled out baboon sounds.

"Noooo." The Gaffer held a hand to his ear. "Mr. Baggins is goned. Goned with my worthless son, Sam. Yes, _goned_, I said. Are you deaf? Noooo, I ain't taking no messages. Go find 'im yourself. Of course, everyone knows, he's gone to Buckland to retire. Yes, I think I seened him with a ring, now that you mention it. What business is it of yours?"

The outlandish man swiped his chainsaw at the Gaffer's wooden legs. The Gaffer hopped onto the saw and threw mulch into his eyes. The man yowled, waved a skinless fist, and rode off.

The Gaffer flung a hand-shovel into his retreating back.

"Why, this reminds me of the Old Day, back in The War…"

**/Flashback/**

The Gaffer stood in a smoking, pitted field. His legs were flesh-and-blood. A lieutenant colonel, his only officer still breathing, approached him tentatively and saluted.

"Sir! They're in retreat, but I think…"

"What do you think?"

"They're gonna flank us."

The Gaffer popped a clip into his rifle and warbled, "Leave that to me, lieutenant."

**/ / /POP/ POP/ / POP/ **

"Enough!" Frodo waved a hand, bursting the three flashback bubbles one by one. "Pippin, get out the sandwiches."

"NO!"

They continued on to Buckland. The day got fed up with being bright and became evening. Pippin's whining only intensified with the darkness. It became like a siren's wail, continuous, high pitched, and after a time like background static. It was loud enough, though, that they didn't hear the pounding of horse shoes or the rumble of a chainsaw – till it was right on top of them.

Pippin screamed and fell into a ditch. Sam and Frodo rolled into a gorse bush. They saw the horse stop and a rider dismount where they'd stood a second before. A chainsaw rattled. It buzzed across the bushes across the road. Dissatisfied, apparently, the sawer came to their side and sliced neatly through the bramble toward them… closer and closer, the chips of leaves and bark flying into their faces…

Then came a faint blaring din and stomping of someone quite indifferent to the health of the undergrowth. The chainsaw wielder packed up and left.

Frodo rose to meet the newcomer, leaving Sam to tear his skin free of the bush. Within a minute, an Elf stomped down a young sapling on the road's edge, bagpipe to his lips. He broke off on seeing Frodo and sheepishly hid the hulking instrument behind his back.

There was staring.

"Hi. I'm Gildor Inglorion. And you're Frodo. There's been much ado about you."

The Elf's hair gave off a greenish luminescent glow. He was dressed in a red-white plaid toga. A plastic yellow circlet graced his brow, showing to someone somewhere he was important.

Sam fainted, facedown into a puddle. A stream of bubbles gurgled from his mouth.

Pippin climbed from the ditch and pointed. "His ears dumb!"

Frodo told Pippin to shut up and then addressed Gildor, "Waz up?"

"Not much the past decade or so. Shire's been a dull place since Bilbo left." The be-togaed Elf shrugged.

"O wise one!" shrilled Pippin. "Tell us about the Black Riders!"

"_Black Riders_?" Gildor looked over his shoulder, but his bagpipe impeded the view. "Whatever would you want to know about _them_?"

"We seen two! One slunk away just as you showed up."

"Oh." Gildor sighed. "Must've been someone else. Those dread servants of the Enemy were destroyed in The War long ago. Luckily. I wouldn't worry."

Frodo grunted in a way that said he found this conversation exceedingly unenlightening.

"Would you like to…" The Elf gave them a furtive look. "To dine with me at Woodhall. There will be elvish wine, magical cakes, a poor fare, but…"

"No thanks, sounds dreadful," said Frodo.

Sam stirred. Pippin was swiftly getting bored and investigating his nose.

"You haven't seen Gandalf, by chance?" Frodo said.

Gildor itched his luminescent hair. "Gandalf! Gandalf? No, I hadn't seen him. I would have liked to. He owed me money. But now's too late. He's dead, you know."

**To be continued **


	9. Finally the Epic Begins

**Chapter 9: Finally the Epic Begins**

Gildor pulled out the _Shire Gazette._ Frodo took it and scanned a short article about some magician dying in some gutter somewhere. On front page blazed a photograph of Frodo, Sam and Pippin with the headline "Move – Mad Bags Treks to Buckland." Below, the top story was still the turn to heat in July and August and how an unhot cooling had followed September's waning.

"Well, let's go." Frodo crumpled up the paper and handed it back to Gildor. "The sooner we arrive, the sooner I can kick that old con."

"But…" Sam said tearfully. "Gandalf's dead!"

"Maybe, maybe not. The _Gazette _is not a purist fact-checker."

Gildor assented while he nursed his paper.

Frodo yawned. "Let's go by bus the rest of the way."

"But Gandalf said-"

"Sam, I'm going to put this into three steps that even you will understand."

Sam nodded eagerly.

"One, I don't. Two, trust. Three, Gandalf."

Sam thought for a moment, counted his fingers. "Um, could you go back to step one?"

Frodo kicked him and slouched for the nearest bus stop. Pippin _weeed._ Sam tried to free the luggage from the thorns. Gildor waved, and as soon as their curls disappeared round the bend, he brought his pipes to his lips once more.

The bus was typical of East Farthing public transport. Bare bones, no comforts, with a driver whose day job was farming organic lembas wheat. Pippin lost interest in pealing the yellow fabric off the seats fairly quickly and soon was chucking the dead flies and dried gum wads he found under seat at the driver. But the driver had on board his three Dobermans, who pursued Pippin up into the baggage rack, and there he stayed, crying, up to Buckland's county line.

The sun scowled in the west when they came to Crickhollow. Merry met them at the stop, carving his initials in the wooden posts. "Expected you hours ago, man."

"Sam's fault," said Frodo.

Pippin wiped his tears on his sleeve and declared his coolness.

"Flab's got supper ready." Merry paused. "Or he did."

Dobermans tasting his heels, Sam struggled out the bus under Frodo's bed and luggage. The three cousins had already made it a quarter mile up the lane. He puffed to catch up. Straight ahead loomed that forsaken corner of the Shire's one attraction. Crickhollow was home to Middle-earth's largest spoon, a 20-foot plaster replica of the utensil, standing upright behind a chain fence, like the gravestone of a soup-fond giant.

A little farther up the road was the house Frodo had purchased from an old couple for half its value. Inside was an eerie reproduction of the cluttered front hall of Bad End, diamond studded curtains, mummies, troll-scent candles and all.

Flabby greeted them in the kitchen. "You guys took so long I ate the supper without you. So I thought you'd still be hungry when you got here, and I made it again. But then I ate it. So…"

Flabby was clearly at a lost what to do next.

"You make dinner again," said Merry. "While we clean up. And your BO's righteous," he informed Frodo.

"Thank you," said Frodo. "Pippin, set the table."

"You're stripping me of my youth!" said Pippin as he fled to an unknown region of the house.

Flabby prepared another meal and sat down with them to eat half of it.

"Let's cut to the chase!" declared Merry, twisting toward Frodo. "Even your penchant for the contrary couldn't have pushed you to sell Bad End to the S-Bs and move to this dump."

Frodo threw up his hands. "Alright. I confess. I'm terminally ill. I plan to die here quietly."

"Oh no, cousin Frodo," said Merry with a smug smile. "You're in deeper than that. We know everything. About Gandalf. Mordor. The Bigfoot babies. And the Ring."

Frodo straightened in his chair and struck them, one by one, with a stare of steel. "Who. Told. You."

"Our Informer." Merry gestured to the gardener, whose face turned several colors that weren't to be found on the spectrum. "Sam, take a bow."

Sam hopped to his feet and clumsily obeyed.

"I will kill you," said Frodo.

"Don't do any killing until you hear us out," the Brandybuck said, placing his boots comfortably on the table.

Frodo heard them out. He paid attention at least through the first third of it.

"…And here we conclude the Conspiracy. We're coming with you no matter how much you hate it."

"Fine," Frodo shrugged.

"Me too!" said Pippin.

"NO," said Frodo.

"Uhm," Flabby said slowly. "Do I get to be a hero too?"

Frodo laughed unkindly. "C'mon. Honestly. Flabby, face it, whoever thinks of _the Bolger_ when Frodo and Company is mentioned?"

"Well," said Merry after a pause. "We need to go _some_where if we're going to go at all." He pondered and snapped his fingers. "Bree. We can get transportation there and possibly track Gandalf down."

"But not on the main road. I'm tired of these reporters." Frodo opened the evening paper. The headline was "Meet Mrs Baggins" and under was an obviously altered pic of Frodo smooching an unglamorous Entwife.

"We could go through the Old Forest," said Merry. "No journalist will follow us in there."

"True," said Frodo, a little disappointed. "It's just, I wanted to try out my new heat seeking arsenals."

Merry nodded to the first part of Frodo's reply. "Cool. We'll leave ere the break of day."

"Yes! YES! My favorite!" squealed Pippin. "When's that?"

He was ignored.

Frodo, yawning, agreed to Merry's proposal. And after giving Sam the Evil Eye crawled into his bed and dreamt of chainsaws and the S-Bs and their combinations.

He woke to a putrid smoky smell.

"Get up," shouted Merry at his door. "Pippin's already cooking breakfast."

Five minutes later, Frodo gazed on the smoldering oatmeal in his bowl. "I'm not eating this garbage."

Pippin cried and wailed, but since Flabby relieved them all of their portions, he eventually forgot and settled to jumping on the couch.

"We're making good time," said Merry, glancing at his wristwatch. "The first tours of the Great Spoon don't start till eight. We can slip into the Forest and none to witness."

"Don't go in there, guys." Flabby followed them to the door, still licking Frodo's bowl. "There's wolves and goblins and witches!"

"Just because your nanny tried to scare you to sleep…" Frodo rolled his eyes. "Anyway, you're not comin'."

"I know," said Flabby, looking down at his stomach. "I am to… I am to…" He looked at Merry. "What am I doing again?"

"You're pretending to be Frodo," said Merry. "No one will be able to tell if they don't come asking."

"What if someone _does _come asking?"

"Just tell them I'm dead," Frodo shrugged.

"Oh. Okay." Flabby waved till they reached the edge of the lawn, then he stepped back inside and into the pantry.

Merry was the spoilt heir of a spoiled family. When he asked for a pony, he got a six. They rode four and had the other two beasts carry Frodo's bed and the food.

"What Flab said wasn't all nanny nonsense," Merry explained as they approached the barbed wire fence that kept in the trees. "There are queer things in the Old Forest. Sometimes Brandybucks hide out in here, but usually it's just heretics, thieves and serial killers." He took out a key that looked to have been carved from a hobbit femur.

He unlocked the gate. A thick fog lay on the forest, though nowhere else. The trees frowned at them. Their eyes followed the hobbits' every step as though wishing their branches were more suited for scraping off skin.

"These are the dumbest trees I ever seen!" Pippin screeched. "I want to burn 'em all down. It'd be cooooool!"

"I wouldn't say that, man. The trees, like, can hear."

"I don't care!" The idea that the trees _could _hear made Pippin more daring and he kicked one to show how little he cared for their opinion, so mighty in coolness was he. A limb fell on his head.

Nothing more interesting occurred for three uninteresting days. On the afternoon of the third, Frodo found he recognized the trees' warts and noses.

"Yo Merry," said Frodo. "We're back at the gate."

Merry looked around and shrugged apologetically. "That happens sometimes."

"That happens sometimes," said an echo that sounded like Frodo.

They started on again. Sam glanced to the side and caught a flash of yellow: a small way off the path, in a small glade, sat a little dandelion.

Sam stopped and pointed. "What a pretty flower!"

The others stopped too. They pushed into the glade and gathered around.

Frodo clasped his hands. "Aw, and it's all alone!"

Merry pat it. "Look at its wittle flower face!"

"And it's got wittle flower petals!" squeed Pippin.

"Googeewooobllduh!" cooed Frodo.

They formed a circle around the flower and joined hands. "Flower, flower, we love you! Your petals so yellow and your leaves so blue."

Like a kick from the Gaffer's peg legs, Sam felt something was not quite right. He'd had a modest amount of experience in the caretaking of flowers and he knew a malignant blossom when he smelled it.

Sam broke from the circle and waved his arms. "Everyone! Get away from it! It don't mean us no good!"

The other three glowered at him. He felt the change in his pocket melt.

"BOO!" said Pippin.

"What's wrong Sam? Want to pick on a baby flower. Is that how you get your sick kicks. Is it, Sam?" Frodo pushed him against a tree.

Merry's pocket knife tickled his nose. "No more of your cracks."

Sam nodded.

Merry, Pippin and Frodo returned to the flower and joined hands once more.

"There's something unnatural here!" Sam sobbed to himself. "Oh, what would the Gaffer do?" The Gaffer in his thoughts gave him another sound kick.

Sam ran back to the path, sobbing and wringing his hands. "Oh help! Oh help!"

Suddenly there came an answering voice, faint at first, then louder and louder. It spoke in verse – Shakespeare, Sam thought in awe. And his awe only grew when he saw the voice's master.

A fat man jiggled up the path. A daisy wilted in his hat, more rightly to be identified as a folded fertilizer sack. On his feet he wore a pair of potato chip bags, whose yellow spray-paint was cracking. A stamp, lost long ago in the licking, stuck to one side of his mouth amidst his face-hairs.

Sam fell to his knees. "O great one, please save Mister Frodo!"

The man didn't seem to hear. He skipped by and through the hobbit-circle and his shoes landed squarely on the dandelion. At that moment he seemed to take notice of the world. "Eepers." He looked at the bottom of his shoe. "Yours?" he asked the bewildered and blinking hobbits. "Well, then, finders keepers."

The man grasped the broken and bleeding flower and stuffed it into a pocket. "Here's a pretty present for a pretty lady. It was our anniversary the day before yesterday-dy"

"Who are you?" said Frodo with a firm rub to his head.

"I'm Tom Bumbadil, that's my name. I live in this forest-ame."

"That doesn't really rhyme!" Pippin said.

Beads of to sweat gathered on Bumbadil's forehead. "Um, erm, a-hick-a-wick-a-illo. Follow old Tom Bumbadillo. His home is near-o. No need to stand there-o."

Frodo whispered to the others: "Better do as he says: go thither. For we're lost and he may be a serial killer."

"That'd be bad," Merry agreed. "Best not to make him mad."

"But… whup!" Sam began before Frodo slapped a hand over his mouth.

"Shut up."

They grabbed Merry's ponies and sauntered after Bumbadil. They came to a shack whose aluminum walls were peeling and gingerbread roof was nibbled bare in many places. From inside they heard a tired feminine voice singing,

_There's bills to pay_ _But Tom's a jerk_

_He sleeps all day _

_And he doesn't work._

"Ah, there's the wife. Now come inside and don't… strife," Bumbadil ended with a cough.

They parked their ponies by the door and tiptoed into a dark and dingy kitchen of sorts. Brooms and mops and dustpans adorned the walls like trophies. But the cleaning apparatuses seemed to do it no good. The table was under an inch of dust and spiders had sovereignty of the ceiling. It took a minute to notice Goldberry, who hardly popped from the dusty environs; she held a bent broom, a grey apron drooped around her waist, and her yellow hair was shackled in a kerchief. She gave them a languid look under heavy lids. Bumbadil set the dead dandelion on the table.

"See, guests to adorn the table," Bumbadil pushed the hobbits forward. "Now, on to the stable!" He danced a slow shuffling dance back out the door.

"Always bringing friends." Goldberry tore long strips of wood from the broom's handle and flicked them at the dead flower. "Who eat and eat and play poker again. And again."

But Bumbadil'd gone.

So Goldberry rounded on the four hobbits. They shrunk back.

"Fine specimens!" Goldberry lilted, suddenly eager, as she pierced her gaze on them one by one. They felt like tomatoes being surveyed by a shopper. "Sit: tell where you've been."

They obeyed. Indeed, they now noted, the broom's handle was carved to a point.

When, fifteen seconds later, they had finished the tale of their adventures in the forest, Goldberry stuck her broom into the floor, point first. "Guests need themselves to stuff." She crossed to a cupboard and removed several cans of bread and beans. She dumped the cans' contents into unwashed plates from the sink. "Now eat! There's enough!"

Bumbadil, performing a clumsy Macarena, appeared at the door once more.

"Mmm, cow," he said as he sniffed the bread can and "Ow!" as Goldberry slapped his wrist.

"Pest! It's for our guests."

She slammed the plates in front of them. Dust choked the air and did not settle. They made the effort to eat. With Goldberry drilling her lidded eyes at them all the while, they could hardly not gulp down every last chunk.

At last, faces green and bellies bulging, they sat back with groans.

"I'm sleepy," whined Pippin.

"Don't get weepy," warned Frodo.

Sam asked, "Will we spend the night in a tepee?"

Merry moaned. "Man, this is gettin' creepy."

"You are tired," said Goldberry, dumping the plates back into the sink. "Sleep is required."

"Yes! Sleep! And heed not the night… cheeps," Bumbadil finished proudly. Pippin booed.

Goldberry and Bumbadil led them to a tiny room lined with four lawnchairs decked with damp blankets and pillows.

"This is unpleasant," murmured Frodo as shut his eye went.

* * *

Frodo held a long kitchen knife. He was in a great shadowy room, without walls or ceiling. He was gashing the air with flamboyant heroism.

"Back, Sauron, you vile worm."

Suddenly the shadows joined together into a man-shape, only twice the height of any big-folk. His eyes were arctic blue and his beard was black and pointy. His burgundy armor spiked up on his shoulders like folded bat wings. He assessed Frodo, his lip curled.

"Yous talkin' to me?"

He lifted a spiky iron boot and pounded Frodo's shadow. The hobbit rolled under the next stomp. He had to slide on his stomach to avoid the other foot. Their dance continued till finally by luck Sauron's foot found Frodo's head…

Frodo woke. The room was dark. The night silent. He noticed, as if for the first time, the dead geese hanging over their cots, the ice-box chill of the room, and the posters of the correct cuts for hobbit meat on the wall. Frodo slapped his companions to wakefulness. "We're leaving."

* * *

Four hobbit-sized ducks waddled up onto the road. Once they cleared the drainage ditch, their heads fell off, one by one, to reveal the pink sweaty faces of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin.

"That was close," said Sam, panting for air.

Merry grinned. "I liked the part when our bus derailed the train."

"It was cooooool!"

"Yeah," Frodo nodded. "The motorcycle chase was pretty neat too."

There was a short pause as Merry's ponies drove up in a beat-up pickup truck. The ponies filed out and they together walked up the road. Soon they saw billboards for Starbucks and other traces of civilization ahead.

"Now remember." Frodo turned on them; his teeth took the appearance of fangs. "I'm Mister . The name Baggins must not be mentioned. And if you see anyone that might even distantly be related to a journalist, shoot him."

He threw his duck costume into a bush which said, "ouch!"

"But how can you go around a brook?" said Pippin.

Frodo scowled and shoved on ahead.

He rounded the bend and there it was – finally. Bree. A backwards town built long ago from Breestone by the race of Breeites from the fourth planet of the star Bree. It sat on Breehill and was, in fact, the principle town in Bree County. The court house was also of Breestone, though it had burned down twice in its history, both instances from fire-vomiting secretaries, but been rebuilt, each time with renovations, so it stood thirteen stories above the rest of town, mainly one-storey cottages, that, by law to keep tourists flocking, had to contain thatch-roofs and teeny, rather impractical shutters.

They ambled to the foot of Bree's cold iron gate. A neon sign hummed above it,

_Bree Welcomes You._

And below in smaller type,

_Strange People Keep Out. _


	10. So a Hero, a Brat, a Gardener

**Chapter 10: So a Hero, a Brat, a Gardener and a Punk Walk Into a Bar **

Harry the Guard had been the guard for thirty-seven years. Retirement was not on his horizon. He was waiting for his Big Moment, the moment his whole career had been careening him toward. That morning he kicked off the sheets and scowled in looking-glass. It was tonight. He just knew there was going to be a break-in tonight. As he straitened his tie before the glass, he told Josie, "I just know there's going to be a break-in tonight."

"Wha's that, dear?" Josie pushed her vacuum between his feet.

Harry polished his shades and slid them over his eyes. "They ain't gettin' past Harry."

Though nothing happened that day except a minor incident between a wolf and three pigs, he lost no faith that this was_ the_ night. And then they came, like apparitions out of the dusk. Hobbits. Four hobbits.

"Stick your hands up!" Harry brandished his bobby-stick. "Under the metal detector. I just know there's going to be a break-in tonight!"

"Mr. Frodo!" hissed Sam. "The Ring!" In horror, he watched Frodo pass under the cold grey arch. He waited for the wail, the guard coming down on Frodo, the confiscation of the dread trinket, the world being swallowed in flames… or a pond, what was much worst…

The pond came not. Frodo stood on the other side, tapping his foot. Merry and Pippin had already jostled each other through. Frodo jerked his thumb over his ear. Sam's eyes followed to the power outlet beside the gate. The detector's cord was unplugged.

Once Sam joined them, they paused to watch a shadowy figure scale the gate and fall into a pool of muck.

Shrugging, they strolled down Bree Street. They passed tourist information signs and storefronts packed with mugs, t-shirts and spoons. They made one stop in the Bree Bookshop. A book-signing by Pengolodh was in progress. (_Teachings: Like It Is_, 2nd ed). Thus saith Pengolodh of Pippin: "Go away, please." But first, Frodo bought _Chicken Soup for the Fëa_, _How to Win Friends and Influence People_, and _The Encyclopaedia Ardanica. _Sam carried the bags.

"Now, what's that pub Gandalf said to go to?" said Frodo.

Merry thought. "It was definitely something-Pony. P-something."

All at once they stopped and looked up.

The years had stripped the sign of its paint. Vaguely could be seen the outline of _Pooping Pony._ Pippin giggled. Frodo looked doubtfully into the black gap where a door once was, probably caved in from some past winter's snow. It was unlikely the door had had much use when it had stood there, for two holes, one man-sized and the other hobbit-sized were beat into the wall. Through them they could make out sickly candle light and hear depressed cantina music, so the place was not yet wholly abandoned. Frodo led the way through the plaster, into a haze of smell and dust, toward a shadowy bulk that he guessed correctly to be the front counter.

The proprietor of the Pony, Butterman Butterburp, was a man of generous belly. He was wiping down the counter with what might have once been either a wig or a ferret. Upon Frodo's cough, he dropped it into a barrel behind the counter. A body, which looked dead, slumped against a wall.

"Yo," said Frodo. "Has Gandalf arrived?"

"Gandalf! Gandalf?" Beer of years untold was on his breath. "Grey beard, pointy head. Sticks nose into everything. Robes that blow everywhere. Carries a paddle… Owes me money…"

"So is he here?" said Frodo, guarding his nose with his hand.

"Uh, no. Me shoot him if I see him. Maybe he come by. You want spend money while you wait?"

The hobbits huddled.

"I know we're supp'sed to meet Gandalf. But why do we _want _to?" Merry asked. He eyed the walls, oily and perspiring, a tad unsuitable for leaning.

"Because. I noticed after he left," Frodo glowered. Hell-fire was in his eyes. "My wallet is gone."

They seated themselves in a black booth. They realized soon that black was not its original color and they were too afraid to peel it off and find what lay hidden underneath.

While the others drummed their fingers and tried to pry them off again from the gummy surface, Frodo called Flabby's cell.

Flabby was bent in the fridge, Frodo's tailored white suit much stretched over his stomach. "Hey! Uh-huh. Nothing much," he thought for a minute. "The house is being watched. Nope, that's all. All right. See yah." He emerged, salami, cheese, tomatoes, pudding, peanut butter, watermelon, mayonnaise and pickles stacked on one arm, quivering over his head. He kicked the fridge shut. And suddenly it went cold, deep cold like a milkshake slurped too fast. Flabby tried to swallow. One by one the meat, cheese, and condiments splattered onto the tiles. A mustard bottle's lid popped off, its contents spewing out like yellow blood. Flabby heard a chainsaw rumble at the front door. He watched the mustard bleed into a rug for a few seconds more before shrieking. He grabbed the pickle jar and waddled out Crickhollow's back door. "Fear! Fire! Foes!"

* * *

"Flab's awright." Frodo pocketed his cell.

Butterburp waited at Frodo's elbow and spilt beer on Merry, who said in vexation, "Dude!"

"Watcha got?" said Frodo.

"We 'ave mutton and legolamb."

"Isn't there something not sheep?"

"No."

So they ordered three muttons and one legolamb. Butterburp went behind the counter, muttering about "outlanders" and he reached into the barrel and fished out four greasy slabs.

While their stomachs rumbled and squirted in anticipation – Goldberry's cooking had left much to be desired – Sam nudged Frodo's arm and whispered, "That feller's been starin'."

"_I know Sam,"_ said Frodo in singsong.

Indeed, an unshowered someone was pretending to be reading July's issue of _Elleth's Day_, but over the leaves could be seen a pair of binoculars pointed toward the hobbits' table.

"Who's that weirdo?" Frodo asked Butterburp. Butterburp, turning, spilled beer on himself.

"Uh-ah… Snapper…" Beer rained on Merry, who cowered under a handful of napkins. "Uh, no, Snipper…" More beer. "Uh-ah, Stripper… or Tripper. Me don't know." Butterburp took a long swig, half of which ended up on his shirt. Somehow the mug seemed to never empty. He lowered his arm, tipping the mug, and a quart seeped into Merry's leather lap.

"My vest, man!" But it was beyond the help of paper napkins. "I'm going to find a leather shop. There's got to be one still open." Merry squelched out the bar.

Butterburp took Merry's plate back and dumped it into the barrel.

As Frodo slid his mutton under the table, the man Tripper made 'come hither' signs. Frodo ignored him. The man ripped a page from the magazine, crumpled and threw it. Frodo ignored him more. A severe barrage of papers followed. Some drunks began to sober and point. Finally Frodo looked up; the man was pointing his binoculars into his ear. "Buzz off."

The man, nursing two black-eyes, slumped back to his chair.

"Mr. Frodo, want me to go…" Sam searched for the word. "_Gruff _him up a little?"

"On second thought," said Frodo, "I think I'll talk to him."

Sam protested. Frodo stapled his lips shut.

The man seemed positively delighted that Frodo approached him.

"I'm positively delighted, Mr. ." The man leaned forward to whisper, "Or should I say Mr. _Waggins_."

"Baggins."

"Positively delighted," he said again, falling back and seeming to forget what he wanted to say. Someone began blowing wet raspberries. Tripper slapped his thigh and they ceased.

"Howdja know my name?" said Frodo, checking his watch.

"I've been." The man held his head high on his stringy turkeyneck. "Spying. Following you along the road. And over the gate. Perhaps you did not notice…"

Frodo was thinking that he looked rather like a duck, big feet, wide nose, though the turkeyneck was his most distinguishing feature. Was there such a thing as a durkey? Or would it be a tuck…?

"Hm? Oh yes, I did."

The raspberries started up again, louder, so that Tripper had to raise his voice, "Perhaps it would be better to talk in private."

"No."

Tripper appeared to give his leg a savage pinch; the raspberries faltered and seemed to take Tripper's confidence along with them. "Um, so, yeah. Hey, um, your friend's making a lot of noise."

Indeed Pippin was, but that was hardly unusual. "Not a tuck but a Took," Frodo mused. He said more loudly, "So?"

"J-just, well, thought you ought to know… you know?"

"He don't," said a snarky voice. Tripper again slapped his side. The voice yelped. Frodo had had it. He stomped over to Pippin's squealing.

"Then he disappeared with a bang!"

"Really?"gasped Pippin's listener, rapt and gawking.

"Yeah, you were there, stupid – eeEEee - !"

Frodo leaped over two tables and stapled Pippin's mouth shut. Now the whole bar was staring. Still on the table, Frodo straightened himself and scratched the back of his neck.

"Uh, hey everybody. Thanks for having us."

"He'sh drunk," a regular hooted.

"Song! Song!" cried the other drinkers.

Frodo began a tune that Bilbo had stolen and embellished.

_Twinkle twinkle little star_

_How I abhor where you are_

_Up above the world so high_

_A great big Silmaril in the sky_

_Twinkle twinkle little star_

_How I wish you were in m' jar_

Every drunk, from the jolliest to the meanest were arm-in-arm, tears pouring down their faces. "Again! Again!"

"Not on your life!" said Frodo as he reached into his pocket and emptied a jar of fire-ants onto their heads.

* * *

In the parlor of Isengard, tastefully decorated in late Númenórean, Gandalf and Saruman sputtered over a bottle of Dorwinion '939

Gandalf supported himself on Saruman's arm. "And then – and then he says 'They've been asking for Shire.' And I says, '_The _Shire.' Definite articles, friend."

"Oh Radagast!" Saruman wiped away a tear. "Radagast the bird-tamer, Radagast the fool." They laughed heartily, slapping the other's back.

"But now. Really, what I wanted to tell you." Saruman settled down, adjusting his adhesive nails.  
"I've joined Sauron. Will you help?"

"Oh, um, I see! How much is my cut?"

"I knew you'd say that," said Saruman. "My offer was just a jest. I've no use for your parlor tricks. You're worth more as a hostage."

"H-hostage?" Gandalf got up and hastily gathered Saruman's spoon collection into his pockets.

Meanwhile, Saruman closed and bolted the doors and windows. In a swirl of wing-like capes, he reseated himself and steepled his hands to watch Gandalf feebly wring the doorknob. "It's to Sauron or Círdan, then." Saruman's grin revealed pointed canine teeth. "The bidding begins tonight."

The white wizard called in his orcish butler, and before he cuffed Gandalf, Saruman relieved he grey conjuror of a tea-set and toaster, and other small items that had wended their way into Gandalf's sleeves. After Gandalf had been dragged out, pleading and punning, Saruman sorted through the various knickknacks, not from his own shelves, but doubtless other victims'. Earrings, porcelain, coasters from every pub under Anar, casserole dishes, Christmas lights. A wallet caught his eye. He opened it and a peeved midget glared back at him. He thumbed through the little flaps and Precious' ETHUM membership card spilled out.

New evil ideas began forming behind the wizard's brow. He snapped the wallet shut. "On second thought, I can put off the bidding till Tuesday."

* * *

The TV in their room was shaky, black-and-white, looking to date back to the Second Age. The sitcom, even older.

_MAEDHROS: (slaps palms together and beams) "So, __what ships will you spare to return, and whom shall they bear hither first? Fingon the valiant?'_

_FËANOR: "None and none!"_

_HIDDEN AUDIENCE: (laughs)_

_FËANOR: (flippant gesture) "Torch 'em."_

_CURUNIR: "Heee." _

_(Boats go poof)._

_AMRAS: (glances around)"Where's my twin? Wasn't he sleeping on yonder burning ships?"_

_(Zoom to Fëanor's face. Comedic gotcha music)._

_FËANOR: "Oops." _

_AMRAS: (slaps forehead) "Daaady."  
_

_(The six remaining sons exchange 'not again' looks). _

_AUDIENCE: (in titters) _

_AMROD: (hops from Fëanor's shadow) "Here I am!"_

_FËANOR: "Where were you, boy?"_

_AMROD: "Behind you the whole time."_

_FËANOR: "O son, you know I never look back there."_

_AMROD: (throws back head) "Hahaha!"_

_OTHER SONS & FËANOR: "Hahaha!"_

_A click and the picture fades out._

"I hate this show." Frodo chucked the channel-changer out the window. He'd returned from the bathroom – that cell of horrors – with a toothbrush and towel. His Furies buzzed around his ears and sent them off to bother the local grocery.

"But that's my favorite! My fav-or-ite!" wailed Pippin.

He was dangling by his ankles from the curtains, his face a bright ketchup red. Usually he was Merry's problem, but since Merry hadn't returned from the leather shop, Frodo dealt with his excitable cousin his own way.

Something suddenly went splat. It was Tripper; he toppled face-first in front of them, stiff as a corpse, likely because his four limbs had fallen asleep in the corner. He spoke to the floorboards, "Perhaps you didn't see me sneak in behind you and hide in the shadows."

"Yes, actually." Frodo hopped into his four-poster bed and took out _Chicken Soup for the Fëa. _

By his employer's orders, Sam lay flat on the floor. It was to attract the roaches and rats and thus keep them from the bed.

Just then the door slammed open, bumping against Tripper's skull. Butterburp waddled in and sloshed beer on Sam. Instantly, the roaches attacked. Tripper lay motionless beside him, ignored by the insects like a heap of radioactive sludge.

"Him! " Butterburp pointed at the fallen man with his mug. "He crazy. I kill him if I you."

"We'll see," Frodo promised. "What do you want?"

"Uh-ah, you say something about Gandalf. And I, uh, remembered this." Butterburp handed Frodo an envelope, which looked and smelled like it had been swimming in the barrel.

"Uh-ah, now, I feel bad," the barkeep belched, rubbing his mug bashfully on his head. "I spill beer on it."

Frodo held up the letter, a drunk raccoon's scrawl on a napkin. "What _is_ this?" He scanned to the bottom at what passed as a signature and said, "Oh." He couldn't make much of the scratches in the main body of the letter, but the postscripts ran thus:_ PS if __**u**__ see a gie called triper trust h__**im**__ u'll no him bie his hed PPS, to make shur its him __**(beer blotch)**__ PPPS etc pay the tab wud you? much apreshated ~ __**G(blotch).**_

Tripper at that moment stirred and lifted his face. A rectangular bruise ran from his chin to his forehead. "I am he. I am Aragorn, M.D. Son of Arathorn. Also known by many other names, known by none, even by me."

"Yes, yes, whatever. Have you references?"

"I had hoped Gandalf…" Tripper stammered.

"Ah'd 'oped Gandalf…" said the bodiless parrot.

Frodo waved the letter in dismissal. "Don't get me started."

"Please let me go with you! I must! I must! I must!" The man had crumpled to his knees, his hands stretched out and clutching Frodo's left ankle.

Frodo's face twisted in a blend of pity and disgust. "I have enough defective hanger-ons as it is."

"Wait. Look." Releasing Frodo, Tripper pulled a card out of his sock and flipped it for the hobbit to see. Frodo scowled. It was an ETHUM membership card.

Bilbo's cackle rang clear in his mind, "Remember Frodo m' lad, the secret to a long and healthy life is to deny an Expert Treasure Hunter nuthin."

Suddenly the door fell forward onto Tripper. Over the wreckage stamped Merry, a scuff on his boot where he'd kicked the door. "Dude, I saw the Riders."

"Whoa. AWESOME!" The final strand holding the curtain to the window split, and Pippin hit the floor, rebounding instantly like a rubber ball. To Merry he flew, pumping his arms and hyperventilating.

"What now, man?" Merry pointed his question to Frodo. His cousin grunted, picked up his book, and turned the page.

_

* * *

_

_T__he TV is on once again, showing Fingolfin's company, frost in their hair and the moon behind them. The sons of Fëanor back up to a rock face, their hands outstretched beseechingly. _

_MAEDHROS: "Jokes, jokes only…" _

_As the frosty mob advances, the music turns squealy and dramatic…_

A Ringwraith sawed the TV in half. Around were four piles of sawdust and molded feathers. A fresh hole gaped in the wall beside the door.

Wraith4 turned to Wraith7. "No hobbits."

"Prancing. Didn't I say prancing?"

Wraith3 consulted the map. "We must have the wrong place." Grumbling, they shouldered their chainsaws. Wraith4 cut an exit hole beside the first, Wraith7 still prattling, "Prancing. I told you. Pr-ancing."

Morning light trickled into the halfling-, man- and wraith-sized holes, over the rat droppings and rats, and splashing on the crusty tables, wiped never but once on a spring day long ago under the ancient starlight when the seas still flowed straight to the western shore and only the Elf-sires were awake. Butterburp woke under his bar to notice for the first time the dead-like body propped beside the barrel.

Merry marched up and slammed his fist on the bar, which sagged on impact and split in a mushroom-cloud of termite larvae. Butterburp belched and scratched his wide belly with his mug, leaning on a still-standing leg of his bar and picked a termite from his mustache, belching again. Merry kept clear of the mug-range.

"Hey man, what is up with this? You have any_ idea_ happened last night?"

"Uh-ah." Butterburp contemplated and gave up.

"My ponies, man!" Merry's fist now slammed the bar-leg. It shuddered but held. "Stolen. All five. Pure-bred Shetlands. I want recompense. Man, if I don't see recompense, beer _will_ spill."

Butterburp studied his mug, and discovering that it was holding equilibrium just fine, shrugged. "You want replacements, there none. No ponies in town. Everyone gone motorcar."

They both saw it at the same time. Like an advert from heaven, a poster, printed in big red letters, appeared on the wall across the bar. _Fine equine 4 sale. (Pony). Call Ferny._

"Ah," said Butterburp. "There pony for sale.10 big monies."

"Cool, so…"

"No, 15 big monies."

Merry turned. Only in time to see it wasn't 15 big monies, but...

Butterburp belched. "Now 20 big monies."

Merry, determined, span again.

"30 big monies…"

This time Merry caught a man in the act of taping up a new poster. His face was cruel and squashed like an old blueberry and two waxed mustaches dangled like black worms from his lips. His ears looked not to have seen soap in three decades. He scuttled into a stack of used napkins as Merry looked on.

Merry's leather shoulders deflated. They needed a pack animal and no question that he needed to provide, for his pride as a Brandybuck was on the line. "Fine. Dude. Just fine. I'll take it."

The exchange was made. When the others came out through the hole – including Tripper with toothpaste smudged on his right cheek and a pillowcase slung over his shoulder – they took a long look at Merry's new purchase, which baaed.

"It's a sheep!" Pippin squealed and proceeded to bridle and saddle it with a fishing rod and trashcan lid. Sam stepped in his path.

"That ain't a sheep. It's a goat or my Gaffer's a gofer." Sam paused to work this out. Pippin wailed and stomped but Sam took an apple to the old goat – the creature looked held together by floss and rubber cement – and beamed. "I'll call you Bill."

Bill the goat bit his ear.

* * *

Twelve hours previously, while Pippin was felling a bookcase of Pengolodh's books on Pengolodh and Tripper lay comatose in dung, four hobbits strolled down Bree Street, their eyes wide at the storefronts and Big Folk picking their noses in them.

"Gandalf said to wait for further instructions at the… what was it?" said Franz, plump and chipper. Only when he clutched the tiny object under his shirt did his rosy cheeks lose their color. He thought he could feel its heart beat. Nonsense, he thought. But there it was. Another beat. He let his hands drop. Gandalf had warned him of this. Never use it. _Never_.

His Aunt Bella hadn't known – could not have known, for if she had, she'd not have thrown on him such a terrible yoke. He still saw the dim lights of the funeral home, smelt the faint scents of flowers and toe-wax, heard his mother's soft munching on her mourning-cupcake as the will was read. "Too my nephew Franz Waggins: my pince-nez, though I hope you never need it..."

He shivered. No, she couldn't have known that the pince-nez of hers had been lost ages ago, had lain asleep in sweet innocence since the War, and was in truth the One Pince-Nez of the Dark Lord. If Gandalf had not come and alerted him to his peril, he could not imagine what may have happened.

By his side walked his plumper and chipper sidekick, Clem. "P-something. I remember that for sure, Mr. Franz."

One of his fresh-faced cousins piped up. "It was Pony! Prancing Pony…"


End file.
